


City of Heroes

by DeathStorm908



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gabriel is plotting, Marichat, Other Season 3 episodes will be ignored unless otherwise tagged, Our heroes actually plan to stop Hawkmoth instead of just waiting around, Post-Season/Series 02, s3e01 Chameleon will happen during this story, s3e04 Backwarder happens before Heroes' Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-09-24 15:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathStorm908/pseuds/DeathStorm908
Summary: Paris is known as the City of Lights, the City of Love, and now it's also known as the City of Heroes.After the events of Heroes' Day, Ladybug and Chat Noir decide to choose who should wield the 12 Zodiac Miraculous, and to properly train them.  The first step for this plan is to take a closer look at the people around them.





	1. The Day After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- The team plans to make plans to fight Hawkmoth  
> \- Marinette has an unexpected encounter with Chat Noir, which is made worse by the fact that a couple of friends saw the whole thing.

While in front of the Mayor’s office, Ladybug is speaking at a press conference, with Chat Noir, Rena Rouge, Queen Bee, Carapace, and the Mayor at her side.

  
“… To quote Mejestia, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing’. I know that yesterday was scary, but we persevered because our city is filled with good people who took action. Paris is known as the City of Love and the City of Lights, but after the events of Heroes Day, you’ve proven that Paris should also be known as the City of Heroes, and I’ve never been prouder to call Paris my home.  
I’ll now hand you off to Mayor Bourgeois who will discuss some initiatives that we’ve been working on to keep everyone safe from the Akumas. It’s time for us to Bug Out”.

Ladybug waves to the cameras and the 5 heroes jump away, and head towards their rendezvous spot on the Eiffel Tower.

 

* * *

 

Carapace hesitantly speaks first, “Soooo… Ladydude, since you had us join the press conference… does that mean we’re not fired?” and ends with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Yesterday was chaos, and even superheroes make mistakes. What’s important is to learn from our mistakes and do better next time.” Ladybug sits down on the beam, dangles her legs a bit, and lets out a sigh. With a kind and understanding voice, “Rena, you saved Carapace by using your body as a shield, you could have just as easily Dark Cupid’s arrow with your flute. Carapace, you lost hope when you saw that Rena was Akumatized, I understand how much that must have hurt, but as heroes, we save Akuma victims all the time. It’s important for heroes to always keep hope alive, especially when things seem at their worst. Queen Bee, you got too distracted by the appearance of your parents, Hawkmoth will probably Akumatize more people that you care about, you need to concentrate on the fact that by fighting them, you’re actually saving them.” Ladybug let’s that sink in for a minute “Yesterday was a close call, we need to be better prepared in the future, and I’m open to ideas.”

“Bugaboo, while the Cat and Bug team is the purrrfect pair, maybe we should have brought out more allies to pounce on Hawkmoth.”

Rena raises her eyebrow, “Wait, how many more Miraculouses are there?”

Ladybug ponders Rena’s question, and exhales slowly. “I thought about handing out all of the Miraculouses yesterday, but I decided it’d take too long to choose and find the right people, and get them all up to speed.”

Chat looks at Ladybug with Kitten eyes, “My Lady, I have some people in mind that would make good heroes, what do you say?” Chat looks at her with Kitten eyes.

“It’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, that you haven’t hired and properly trained the help.”

“Yeah, I agree, Queen Bee should be properly trained”, Rena responds with a smirk. Queen Bee crosses her arms and lets out a hrmph.

“Kitty, I’ll talk to Master about having you pick some of the remaining chosen. Can we all meet up here at 9 tomorrow night? I think we should all spend the day thinking up ideas to defeat Hawkmoth and his new friend. Rena and Bee, you can keep you’re Miraculouses for the day so you can bounce ideas off of them. I’ll take back the Miraculous after we’ve discussed our ideas tomorrow night.”

Everyone agrees and is about to head out when Carapace asks, “Hey Ladydude and Catdude, how do you two communicate, when you’re not transformed?”

“We either wait for our regular patrol times, or we just transform and leave a voice mail with our weapons, and the other will get it when they transform. By the way Chat, I’ll leave you a message after I talk to Master about choosing new allies.”

“Wait… my shield has voice mail??? Never mind, I can figure that out later. But really, shouldn’t we all have an app of something, so we can, you know, plan and stuff.”

“Yes, something with a Chatroom would be purrferable.”

Ladybug groans, “Yeah, now that there’s more of us, it’s probably time we figure that out. Rena and Carapace, can you handle looking into that, and find something that’ll make sure our identities are safe?"

 

* * *

 

Marinette opens the door to Master Fu’s parlor, and sees the old man in a Hawaiian shirt sitting at a table with two cups of hot tea. She sits down across the table, hands him the Turtle Miraculous, and then Wayzz pops out in a shining ball of light.

After taking a sip of tea, Master Fu speaks, “So, have you come up with any ideas yet?”

“Yes, Rena and Carapace are going to look for a good app that we can communicate with when we’re not transformed. We have 12 more heroes to choose, and I think Chat should choose some of them. Keeping too many secrets from him is making him feel more like a sidekick than a partner. He also says he has some people in mind.” Ladybug takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly before continuing. “I think that Rena and Carapace should hold onto their Miraculous full time, rushing here while in the middle of a battle is too dangerous. I’m not recommending the same for Queen Bee since her identity is known. Also, I know it’s dangerous to share too much, but maybe it’s time to choose a new guardian. I’m not sure if it’s the best idea for Ladybug to be the only one that knows secrets, since I’m the one out in battle and could get hurt or controlled.”

Fu closes his eyes and remains quite. While Marinette nervously watches Fu’s face for any hints of his thoughts, she begins to panic and her thoughts run wild… ‘Maybe these were all bad ideas. What if he decides I’m not worthy of being a leader, and chooses someone else of being Ladybug. What if he doesn’t trust Chat with selecting Chosen, and Chat is hurt and decides to quit, he did look really disappointed after Carapace showed up. Maybe Chat thinks I’m trying to replace him because he’s not good enough. If Chat does think that, then I’m the worst partner ever, I need to fix that…’

After an agonizing amount of time, Master Fu finally opens his eyes and speaks, “Yes, I think we can trust Rena to take care of Trixx on a more permanent basis.”

Marinette exhales in relief before understanding Fu’s statement, “Wait, what about Carapace?”

“I’d like to properly test him myself before I hand over Wayzz and reveal any secrets.” After a short pause, Fu continues, “It might be good to have him fetch the new holders when they’re needed, but that would also give him a hint to Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities. Us Guardians were always raised as monks with a somewhat solitary life, because of that, we never had to fear being Akumatized when a loved one is injured, among other issues. He already failed that test, but there aren’t too many monks nearby that I can choose from instead. Maybe, I can start with training his mind to prevent that in the future. I need to contemplate this a little more before I make any decisions.” Fu closes his eyes again for another minute while sipping tea. “As for finding new chosen, why don’t you and Chat Noir each make a list of individuals, with reasons why they would be a good hero, any concerns, their personalities, and which Miraculouses would be a good fit for them. I’ll go over the lists, and conduct the necessary tests on them.”

“Thanks Master, I’ll let Chat know right away. Is there anything else before I head out?”

Fu gave a warm smile, “You should finish your tea before it gets too cold.”

As Ladybug sips her tea, her eyes shoot open. “Oh, I almost forgot. Master, when we fighting Hawkmoth he said something like, ‘You’re still so new, you can’t even stay transformed after you’ve used your powers’, what do you think he meant by that?”

“By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that even when you’re not transformed, you’re stronger, faster, have more endurance, and have quicker reflexes. As you grow as heroes, those attributes will grow as well in your normal bodies. You won’t be as strong as when you’re transformed, but your growing strength is also added to your strength while you’re transformed, but that might be harder to notice. Beyond that, your well of magical energy is growing inside your own body. Think of it like a magic battery that slowly grows over time. By the time you’re an adult, you should be able to use 2 or 3 lucky charms before you have to de-transform. Hopefully we won’t need to wait that long to defeat Hawkmoth and regain the lost Miraculouses.”

“So then, that means he’s probably had the Nooroo for longer than he’s been terrorizing Paris. I wonder why he suddenly decided to use his powers.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning a fancy car pulls over to the side of the street, and the window slides down next to a young man walking down the street carrying a bag and a guitar. “Hey, Luka, right? Are you going to the Ice Rink to meet with the others?”

Luke stops walking and turns to face the voice, “Yes it’s Luka, and I am heading over there now. Was it Kagami?”

“Correct. Would you like a ride since we’re going to the same place? If you walk, you’ll be late.” Kagami says in her normal cold voice.

Luka smirks, “you don’t seem like the type of lady that would offer free rides to strange men” he finishes with a wink. “From what I hear, Marinette is always late anyways, so I decided to follow her pace and observe her in the wild. I’ve only been following her for a few minutes, and it’s been quite interesting. Why don’t you join me, it’s not far from here.”

“Shouldn’t you be with Marinette, holding her hand instead of following her?”

“Oh, no. I like Marinette, but we’re not dating. She invited me to the Ice Rink last time because she was trying to move on, but she’s not ready yet.”

“Move on from who?”

“You’ll need to ask her that herself.”

Kagami thinks for a moment, and speaks to the driver, “I’m getting out here.” She grabs her bag, and gets out of the car. “As for giving rides to strange men, you are correct, I don’t normally do that, but I’m trying to be better friends with Adrien’s friends.” Kagami looks around, “So, where is Marinette then?”

“Over there, helping that old lady cross the street. Earlier she helped a woman get her baby carriage up some stairs, and she also stopped to give tourists some directions. She had to use a translator app on her phone, so it took a little while. It’s no wonder why she’s always late.”

As they follow Marinette, Kagami notices an odd shadow moving with them and looks up. “It seems that someone else is observing Marinette as well.”

“Is that Chat Noir?”

They both start watching Chat Noir as he leaps from roof to roof while keeping his eyes focused on Marinette. Suddenly his ears twitch, while he pulls out his baton, using it to cross the street towards where Marinette was just moments ago. Not sure what’s going on, Luka and Kagami rush over to catch up, when suddenly an adult man is flung out of an alley, and then a moment Chat Noir is also flung out and lands on his back. They hear a gasp, “Sorry Kitty, I thought you were another mugger.” Marinette walks out of the alley and offers her hand to Chat.

Chat grabs her hand to stand up and smirks while putting his other hand over his heart. “Meowch Purrincess, this handsome mug was just trying to lend a paw. Do you have a few minutes so you can give a statement to an officer?” He makes a quick call to the police without waiting for an answer.

“Kitty? Purrincess? Sooo cooool… Ma-ma-marinette, I’ve heard that you’re friends with everyone, but I’m surprised you’re actually friends with a superhero. You’re pretty amazing. Not only that, but taking on a mugger, you’re pretty kick ass as well.”

Startled, Marinette looks over at Luka and Kagami and she quickly regains her composure. “Superheroes don’t have civilian friends, we’re just acquainted from the time he rescued me from a bad date with an Akuma.”

“Oh, and here I thought that date was purrty romantic... at least until we almost drowned.”

Marinette crosses her arms, “Trying to drown us was typical Akuma behavior, and an expected way for a data with an Akuma on a boat to end. What made the date bad was him saying that I was just like Chloe.”

Kagami wondered, “Is it so bad to be compared to Chloe? Isn’t she a superhero now, and isn’t she friends with Adrien?”

Not wanting to spend too much time complaining about someone that’s been trying to do better, Marinette diverts the conversation by waiving at the office that’s heading their way. After giving a quick statement, Chat takes his leave, and the others continue towards the Ice Rink.

As they approach the rink, they see Alya, Nino, Rose, and Juleka talking. Alya waives, “Hey Girl, oh and hey Luka and Kagami, what took you guys so long?”  
Marinette quickly responds, “It’s a long story, how about we talk about it during lunch? Where at the others?” hoping that Alya will forget to ask during lunch, or at least Kagami and Luka won’t be around so she can leave parts out.

“Alix and Kim are already inside competing, and Adrien isn’t here yet.”

Before Marinette could frown, someone spoke behind her, “Hey, I’m right here, but I guess that means my disguise worked.” They turn around to see a smiling boy in a grey hoodie wearing a blue hat and a pair of sunglasses.

“A-A-Adrien, is that you?”

“After last time when you helped me get to the movies, I decided it’s probably better to wear a disguise when I sneak out.”

“Dude, bro, did you really have to sneak out to go ice skating? Won’t you get in trouble when you’re dad finds out?”

Marinette notices a familiar Cheshire smile spread across Adrien’s face, “Don’t worry, I’m practicing piano right now, and then I need to really concentrate on an essay so I’m going to have a late lunch.”

Rose squeaks, “We have an essay? When’s it due, what’s it about? I totally forgot about it.”

Juleka mumbles something that sounds something like “No Rose, he’s… never mind, it’s not an essay we have, let’s just go inside.” Juleka proceeds to drag Rose inside and the rest follow.

 

* * *

 

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing’

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing’

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing’

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing’

 

Nathalie coughs, "Sir, are you alright?"

"I'm better than alright, I find Ladybug's light speech to be very inspiring."  Gabriel smirks, causing a shiver to run down Nathalie's spine.


	2. Ice Skating and Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- The 5 heroes met up to discuss planning on how to take down Hawkmoth.  
> \- Rena Rouge and Queen Bee get to keep their Miraculous for the day.  
> \- It's decided that Ladybug and Chat Noir will come up with lists of potential chosen for the 12 Zodiac Miaculouses.  
> \- On the way to the Ice Rink for a group meetup, Luka and Kagami watch Marinette get distracted helping people, when she suddenly saves herself from a mugger, and then flips over Chat Noir.
> 
> Now:  
> \- Ice Skating and Revelations  
> \- Someone's angry  
> \- Lunch and Revelations

**Sunday Morning (2 days after Hero's Day):**

For the most part, stating at the rink was enjoyed by everyone, as they took turns pairing up with different people. There was only one real injury, and surprisingly enough, instead of Marinette it was Kim that twisted his ankle. Maybe it was a bad idea for Kim to challenge Alix to see who could jump the farthest while ice stating.

 

Adrien didn't notice Marinette constantly stealing glances towards him, even though he was constantly stealing glances at her.  For such a clumsy girl, she seemed pretty graceful on ice, and when she partnered with Luka, she seemed almost angelic.  A new song started playing over the speakers, meaning it was time to change partners.  Adrien skated up to Marinette and Luka, "Hey Marinette, may I have this song?"

Marinette blushed and giggled, "I... great skate you, I mean... ah!".  Marinette fell onto the ice, and Adrien reached his hand out to help her up.

Adrien sighed, and wondered 'w _hat is it going to take to get her to feel comfortable around me_ '.

 

Luka skated over to Kagami and they paired off.

"Hey Luka, I've been getting very confused by those two.  I keep seeing Marinette and Adrien glancing at each other, so it's clear they like each other.  I just don't understand why Marinette would repeatedly turn him down."

Luka's mouth hung open as he stopped moving and slowly drifted to a stop.  "Wait, what?  Marinette would never turn Adrien down, she's apparently had a huge crush on him since they first met.  Are you sure it wasn't someone else that was turning Adrien down?"

"He's never really mentioned anyone else beside Marinette and Chloe, but he thinks of Chloe as a sister.  Wait, if Marinette likes him so much why did the two of you join us on a double date?"

"Apparently Adrien had never been on a date before, so he was a bit nervous to ask you, and wanted help thinking of a date idea, so he asked Marinette to help him.  Marinette didn't want to let Adrien down, so when he asked for advice and to join in a double date, she agreed to help."

Kagami skated off the ice, sitting down on the bleachers, and Luka joined her.  Luka watched over Kagami as she was deep in thought for a couple minutes.  "Luka, I'm having trouble believing it.  To do that for her crush, that must have been really painful.  I think I should return the favor.  If there really is a third girl, then it seems that Adrien doesn't understand his feelings for Marinette, or maybe there's just a huge misunderstanding between the two of them...  Right now he seems stuck chasing after a girl that isn't interested in him.  Luka, will you help me get Adrien to understand his feelings?"

Luka wiped a couple tears off of Kagami's face.  "Yeah, she's a really amazing girl, so I'll help them get together, or at least get to the point where they can discuss their feelings and they can move on.  Maybe we should exchange phone numbers so we can discuss this later."

 

After a few more rounds on the ice, it was time for lunch.  Alix decided to help Kim walk home, while Rose and Juleka had to go do... something... it was really hard to understand Juleka's mumbling.

The rest of the group entered a near-by restaurant and sat down at a table.  "Ok girl, you promised a story about we the three of you were late today."  Screaming suddenly filled the air, "Hold that thought, that's really close by, I bet I can get there before Ladybug and Chat Noir."  Alya grabs for phone and runs out the door.

"Alya!!! Wait!!!"  Nino runs out after her.

"I, um, uh, I've got to go use the bathroom!" Marinette exclaimed as she ran to the back of the restaurant.

"Me too!" Adrien said a little louder then he intended, and followed Marinette.

Kagami blinked in surprise, "what just happened?"

"I don't know.  I guess we should wait for them to get back before we order?  In the meantime maybe we can start planning."

 

* * *

 

Ladybug and Chat Noir land on a nearby roof.  The Akuma was facing away from them, about eight feet tall, and bulging.  He is wearing a denim jacket with a butterfly emblem on the back, the arms of the jacket were torn off revealing thick arms.  The Akuma also has a pair of denim pants, a pair of handcuffs wrapped around one hand being worn like a pair of brass knuckles, and in his other hand he's holding a bag open in front of Alya and Nino.  Alya throws her phone, necklace, and purse into the Akuma's bag, while Nino throws in his phone, wallet and hat, and then both Alya and Nino run away screaming, leaving the Akuma the only one left on the street.

Ladybug and Chat look at each other in surprise.  "My Lady, isn't the Ladyblogger usually braver than that?  What do you think happened?"

"I don't know, I just hope that she finally learns to stay out of danger."  ' _and hopefully that wasn't her miraculous she just threw in the Akuma's bag_ '

The Akuma started turning around and yelled out, "Pig-tailed pipsqueak, where are you.  We have unfinished business to take care of."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"I don't recognize him, maybe he's a disgruntled fan of mine?"

"Did you forget to respond to your fan-mail?"

"You get fan-mail?  Maybe he sent mine to the wrong address."  
Chat leaned over to Ladybug and smirked, "Oh, we should look into that.  Just for reference, what is your address?"  Chat wiggled of his eyebrow.

Ladybug gently pushed him away, "Naughty Kitty, you know the rules."

The Akuma finally turned enough for Chat to see his face, and Chat let out a growl

"What's wrong kitty?"

"That's the guy that attacked Marinette earlier today.  The police arrested him, so maybe the Akuma is in the handcuffs he's holding?"

"Good thinking."  Ladybug leaps down to the street and Chat follows.  Ladybug spins her yo-yo, "All this because a little girl beat you up?"

' _Wait, did I mention that Marinette..._ ' Chat's thoughts were interrupted when he looked into the Akuma's darkened eyes, filled with an intense malice.  Fear spread through his whole body, causing him to stop moving, he even stopped breathing, as he heard Ladybug's yo-yo clattered from dropping onto the ground confirming she was frozen too.

The butterfly symbol appeared, and then the Akuma spoke, "Of course!  Ladybug and Chat Noir, hand over your miraculous."

Ladybug's hands shook in fear as they slowly obeyed, raising to her ear.  She couldn't remove her gaze from the Akuma's, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chat similarly moving his hands as if to remove his ring.  ' _Nonononononono, we're not going to lose like this.  Come on hands, listen to me._ '  In the midst of her internal panic, a serving tray flew into her view and hit the Akuma hit in the head, igniting a spark of courage within her.  She was still terrified, but the fear was slowly subsiding as she could suddenly breath again.  The Akuma shook his head and began to regain his composure.

Before Ladybug and Chat could move again, they heard Kagami yell from out of view.  "Get a job and buy your own jewelry, you thief."

Chat jumped to the side and started circling the Akuma.  "That wasn't very punny, but I'll give the girl points on saving us."

Ladybug starting circling the Akuma as well.  "Don't look into his eyes, they make you obey him."

The Akuma started spinning around, trying to look into their eyes, but they kept looking elsewhere.  He stopped spinning, charged at Chat and raised his hand up to punch Chat.  Suddenly his arm was caught on something.  He looked over and saw it was wrapped up with a yo-yo.  He pulled with all of his strength and Ladybug let out a scream as she went flying overhead.

"Cataclysm!"  While the Akuma was distracted, Chat got up close and touched the handcuffs in the Akuma's hand, and they disintegrated.  "Where is it?"  Chat was startled to not see a butterfly, when he was suddenly punched by the Akuma's other fist, and went straight into a wall, and then fell on the floor.  A bit disoriented, Chat started standing up, lifted his head, and looked straight into the Akuma's eyes, once again paralyzing him.

"Give me your miraculous!" the Akuma demanded, as he started walking towards Chat.

The Akuma's legs buckled under him as the serving tray was again hit him, this time behind the knees.  As the Akuma started standing up again, a guitar came down on his head.  The guitar smashed into pieces, and as the neck of the guitar continued moving downward, it created a large tare in the Akuma's jacket, and a butterfly came out.

Ladybug swung back into the scene, "No more evil-doing for you little Akuma."  She started spinning her yo-yo, "Time to de-evilize!" she captured the Akuma and then released it "Bye-bye little butterfly."  Ladybug looked around for her lucky charm, "Oh, wait... Lucky Charm."  A rope fell out of the sky and she used it to tie up the Akuma victim, she then called the police and waited for them to arrive and take the criminal away.  Next to the man was a pile of stolen goods, and sticking out of it was the Fox miraculous.  ' _Should I grab it?  That might look suspicious.  Maybe the Miraculous Cure will give it back to Alya._ '

Meanwhile, Chat walked over to Kagami and Luka, "You two really saved my hide."  He put his fist out towards them and held it there.  Luka and Kagami looked confused for a moment, before they smiled and put their fists out as well, "Pound It."  His ring beeped, 4 minutes left, he waived "I've got to go, see you later bugaboo" and vaulted off.

Luka waived at Ladybug, "it was nice meeting you again Ladybug, but we've got to get back to lunch with our friends" and he went back inside the restaurant that they were just outside of.  Kagami grabbed the serving tray and brought it back inside.

Suddenly someone landed behind Ladybug, and as Ladybug started turning, she heard a familiar but unusually excited voice of Queen Bee, "I'm here Ladybug, where's the Akuma?"

Ladybug looked down at the tied-up criminal at her feet, "Sorry, but he's been de-evilized already... well, mostly."

Queen Bee crossed her arms and started to look annoyed, "What do you mean mostly?  And why is he tied up?"

"He's a criminal that escaped from the police when he was Akumatized, I'm just waiting for them to arrest him again."

Queen Bee threw her arms into the air, "Ridiculous!  Utterly Ridiculous!  I can't believe I missed the whole thing."

Ladybug's earrings beeped, two minutes left, "Um, I have to go, can you watch him for a couple minutes."

"Ug, Fine"

Ladybug unties the Lucky Charm rope as Queen Bee uses her weapon to tie the criminal up.  Ladybug throws the rope into the air, "Miraculous Ladybug", and then everything was fixed, and the pile of stolen goods vanished.

Ladybug left the scene, took the long way around to the building she was already next to, entered the bathroom window and went back to her table, where Adrien, Kagami, and Luka were already sitting. Adrien was sitting in the one corner of the table, Kagami was sitting next to him, while Luka was sitting in the opposite corner from Adrien.

Marinette saw the spot across from Adrien was open as started heading towards it, but then Luka suddenly waved, "Hey Marinette, sit across from me, I'm sure Alya and Nino will want to sit next to each other when they get back."

"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea..." ' _Great, now Kagami will be blocking my view of Adrien_ '

 

* * *

 

 

The four of them ordered their lunches, and they ordered for Alya and Nino as well, who were happy to see food waiting for them by the time they got back.  Nino sat across from Adrien, and Alya sat between Nino and Luka, across from Kagami.

They sat together at the table as below:

NL | AC | LC

AA | KT | MDC

 

"What happened to you two?"  Marinette asked innocently.

Alya looked exhausted, "The Akuma demanded that we hand over all of our valuables, and then told us to scream while running away... we weren't able to stop running until the Ladybug fixed everything.  Good thing we got our wallets back, so we could take the bus back here."

"Yeah, and I got my hat back", Nino said with a smile.

Alya gave Nino a deadpan stare, "when he said valuables, he didn't mean your hat."

"Well sorry that my hat has sentimental value to me."  Everyone except Kagami chuckled at that exchange, she knew Alya and Nino even less than Marinette and Luka, and didn't know what to make of this.

Alya pulled out her phone, "Did anyone get the name of the Akuma?"

"He didn't say much," Luka made a contemplative expression for a moment, "No, I don't think he said his name."

"Aw man, I was first at the scene and I missed the whole fight."  Alya's head fell down onto the table.

Marinette giggled, "If you keep that up, Hawkmoth might Akumatize you and then you'll get the scope."

Alya groaned into the table, "I don't want to be Akumatized again, someone help."

Kagami spoke up, "Don't reporters name things all the time?  Why don't you make up a name?"

Alya lifted her head up and revealed a smile.  "Hm, what should I call him?  Looking at him was really scary... maybe Scaryface?"

Luka chimed in, "Ladybug said that the power was in his eyes."

"Hm, Scaryeye?  No.  Fear Eye?  Scareye?  Ug!"

Adrien snorted, "I got it, Tariff-Eyed!"

Marinette giggled, "It's a bit of a stretch, but it's probably better than whatever name Hawkmoth came up with."

' _Why doesn't Ladybug laugh at my puns the way Princess does?_ '

Alya started typing away on her phone, "Sounds like we have a winner.  Next up, what was Tariff-Eyed's motivation?"

Luka responded, "Motive?  I think he was embarrassed that Marinette beat him up earlier."

Marinette squeaked, "What, he was after me?"

"WHAT?? Girl, why didn't you tell me you beat someone up?"

Marinette shrunk down in her seat, but before she could respond, Luka spoke up, "She was pretty badass, on the way to the Ice Rink this morning she ended up brawling in an alley with that guy who was at least twice her size.  She even knocked Chat Noir to the ground."

Marinette sat up, crossed her arms and gave Luka an indignant look, "You make it sound like I'm in a gang, brawling in the streets.  I was being perfectly well behaved when the guy grabbed me and pulled me into an alley, so I naturally defended myself and flipped him over.  Chat Noir showed up to help, but he surprised me, so I flipped him over too."

Adrien noticed Nino's and Alya's shocked expressions.  ' _So they didn't know Marinette could do that either._ '  Adrien leaned over the table to see Marinette, "Hey Mari, how did you know how to do that?"

Marinette started fiddling her fingers, "I, um, I..." Marinette took a breath to calm herself, "I've been learning martial arts for a little while now.  I... um didn't say anything because I didn't think I'd be very good at it.  You know, clumsy me and all that."

Adrien frowned, "Marinette, you're amazing at everything you try to do, you should think better of yourself.  How long have you been practicing?"

Marinette blushed at the compliment, "Date BAD! Akuma, I mean, um..." She took a breath, "I had a bad date with an Akuma once, I figured I should learn how to defend myself."

Adrien nodded in approval. "That was very smart of you, and it sounds like it paid off well today.  Maybe we should spar some time and give each other pointers."

Kagami and Luka glanced at each other, and then Kagami spoke up, "That sounds like a great idea, why don't the three of us spar at my family's dojo tomorrow afternoon?"

"Sure, I'll have to confirm with Nathalie when I get home, but it should be fine.  I'll text you when I'm available."  Adrien smiled and looked at Marinette, "What do you say Mari?"

Marinette melted as she saw Adrien's smile, and responded in a dreamy voice "Absolutely Perfect."

Adrien took that as confirmation, and finally stopped leaning over the table, but Marinette continued to stare at where Adrien was.

 Alya had been trying to process all of this while she was in shock, and the list of questions just kept building, ' _How did I not know that Marinette was learning martial arts?  Was this why she's late for everything?  Nah, she wouldn't practice in between classes.  Is she keeping other secrets?  Wait, what was that about Chat Noir?'_ Finally, Alya spoke up, "What was Chat Noir doing there when there wasn't an Akuma attack?"

Luka spoke up, "Kagami and I were following Marinette, watching her help people, when we noticed that Chat Noir was watching Marinette from the rooftops."  Luka looked over at Adrien and paused for a second to contemplate making him jealous.  "Chat Noir called Marinette, Purrinces, I think he has a crush on her."

Marinette choked on her drink, so Luka was the only one that noticed that Adrien looked flustered.  "ME! Crush?  NO! hahaha, pffff.  Chat Noir is a huge flirt... I'm sure he has a nickname for every girl he saves."

Adrien went from thinking about how to pay Marinette a visit to make sure she knows he isn't interested in her like that, to having a knife sticking in his heart. ' _Does she really think I flirt with every girl?  I've got to fix this.  Wait, why, I love Ladybug, so maybe it best I don't fix this, but I don't like her thinking of me as some playboy.  Hm, does Ladybug think that of me too?_ '

"Oh?" Luka responded.  "It seemed to me that the two of your were pretty close."

Adrien's stomach sank, ' _If people think Chat is close with Marinette, Hawkmoth might target her._ '

"Close?  I mean, he's saved me a few times and we've talked a little bit while he's saving me, but how close can we be after spending time with someone a minute here and there?"

Adrien exhaled in relief, ' _She didn't mention the rooftop date I showed her,_ _maybe she's better at keeping secrets than I thought.  Hm, doesn't she like Chat more than Adrien?  Now's a good time to find out._ '  He leaned over the table to speak to Marinette, and playfully spoke, "You know, it doesn't take a lot of time to feel close to someone, and * _he*_ is a superhero that's saved you a few times... it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a celebrity crush on him."

While everyone else at the table groaned internally, and wondered how oblivious Adrien was and why he's shipping Chat and Marinette, Marinette's inner Ladybug was triggered by hearing the playful tone in Adrien's voice and looked into his eyes.  "Pfft, nice try, just because * _someone_ * has a crush on a superhero, it doesn't mean the rest of us do too.  Chat is just a friend."

Adrien blushed and started rubbing the back of his neck. while feeling Plagg chuckle in his shirt, "I, what?  Who said I have a crush?  I don't have a crush... how'd you know?"

Kagami's eyes widened while watching a flustered Adrien. ' _Is Ladybug the girl that turned him down?  And he's still chasing after her?  He really needs to change targets now._ '

Marinette smirked and waived her finger at Adrien, "Nope, a girl's gotta have her secrets."

Alya glared at Marinette, "Speaking of secrets... why is this the first time I'm hearing about you going on a date with an Akuma?"

"I, uh, didn't want him to feel bad for saying that I was just like Chloe."

Alya stood up with her fists clenched, "Who dared say that to you?  I don't care if he was Akumatized, I'm going to set the record straight."

"Alya! calm down.  I'll explain everything."  Alya sat back down.  "Ok, so I was in my room minding my own business when suddenly my window and part of my wall was erased and the Evillustrator came flying in.  I asked him if he was going to hurt me, and he said 'No, I'd never hurt you' and then he invited me to his birthday party.  I told him I was busy with homework or something, but he was being insistent, and I didn't think he'd let me refuse, so I accepted on the condition that he didn't hurt anyone else, even Chloe."

Nino looked sad, "Aw bummer.  He was akumatized on his birthday and none of us knew it.  I guess we're not super tight, but I feel like we should have known."

"So after I accepted, he told me to meet him at 7pm, and then he left.  I was trying to figure out how I could get in contact with Ladybug and Chat Noir, when a couple minutes later Ladybug sung by and asked me what happened to my wall.  I explained things to her, she called Chat who came over, and then we went to his party."

Adrien perked up at this, ' _She makes it sound like Ladybug was there too.  Isn't that an important detail to gloss over?_ '

"He had a boat on the Seine, and was using his powers to make it all romantic like.  I got on the boat with him, we talked for a bit while Chat snuck on board.  I asked him if I could try drawing something, he hesitated to give me the pen, but I was able to put my hand on it so I grabbed the pen and ran away while Chat pinned him down.  Evillustrator yelled at me, saying that I was just like Chloe."  Marinette said Chloe's name with disgust in her voice.

Kagami interrupted, "You don't seem to be a fan of this Chloe.  Why is that?  Isn't she friends with Adrien"  Alya, Nino, and Luka chuckled at the understatement.

Adrien spoke up.  "Chloe is my first friend, but she is rather spoiled, and she takes it out on others if she doesn't get her way.  She has been improving the last few weeks."

Nino added, "Adrien is describing her through his nice guy filter, but it help that he's the only person she's not mean to.  She has caused half of the class to be akumatized, and a few others too."

"So back to the story.  Evillustrator knocked Chat into the air, knocked the pen out of my hand and into his, drew a box that trapped Chat and myself, and then erased part of the boat to make it sink.  By the time we escaped, Evillustrator was long gone, Chat dropped me off on solid land, and then I walked home.  My room was had a couple birds in it, from the hole in the wall, but after a few minutes everything was fixed."

"Oh wow, that's such an amazing story, it's totally blog-worthy."

"Alya don't!"

"Ok, fine!  But next time something like that happens you have to tell me."

"Deal."

Luka looked contemplative.  "None of that explains why Chat Noir calls you Purrincess."

"Uh, because he makes cat puns."

Luka chuckled, "No, I get the cat puns, I mean why does he make a pun on princess?"

Adrien beamed in, "Isn't it obvious?  Marinette is like a Disney Princess.  She's caring, has a balcony, and talks to animals."

Alya snorted, "That's true, I've seen her talking to pigeons."

"No, wait... what?  I meant, Chat Noir is an animal and Marinette talked to him.  Do you really talk to pigeons?"  A phone started buzzing and Adrien stood up.  "Sorry guys, that's my alarm.  I have to head home now so now one will notice that I snuck out."  He then proceeded to put his disguise back on.

Marinette was still blushing over his earlier complement, "B-Bye Adrien, it was a lot of fun hanging out with you."

"It was fun hanging out with you too.  I'll let you know in a little while about going to Kagami's dojo tomorrow.  Bye everyone."  Everyone said bye to Adrien as he proceeded to leave the restaurant, and ducked into an alley.

Plagg flew out of Adrien's shirt and started laughing, "You tried to see if Pigtails likes you, and instead she called you out on your obsession with Ladybug.  Your reaction was priceless.  And then she said 'Chat is just a friend'."  Plagg mimicked air-quotes with his little paws, and then laughed some more.

Adrien frowned, ' _She did say Chat was just a friend, didn't she.  Why is that so disappointing?_ '  "Ok, enough chit chat. Plagg, Claws Out!"  Chat Noir proceeded to leap over the rooftops to head home.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile the others left the restaurant together.  Luka looked over at Kagami, "Hey Kagami, may I walk you to your car?"

"Sure.  Bye guys.  It was nice meeting you Alya and Nino.  And it was nice meeting you again Marinette."  And then in a teasing voice, "I hope you're excited to spare with Adrien and myself tomorrow."

"Bye Nino, Alya, and Ma-ma-marinette."

"Bye Dudes"

"Bye"

"Bye, see you tomorrow!"

 

* * *

 

 

Once they got away from the other's Kagami spoke up, "This is worse than I thought.  I think the girl that Adrien has been pinning over is Ladybug, and she's apparently turned him down multiple times but he's not ready to give up."

"Ouch, that's rough.  But you know what, maybe it's not that hopeless after all.  I heard the other day that Adrien called Marinette the class' 'Everyday Ladybug', so if he's comparing her to Ladybug, then maybe he has feeling for Marinette too.  He also leaned over the table a lot to talk to Marinette.  I was planning to flirt with Marinette a bit, to see if it'd make Adrien jealous, but the conversation did end up going somewhere more interesting."

Sounding unconvinced, "Maybe he has a soft spot for her.  How about we talk tonight?  Give us a little time to think about how we want to approach this?"

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile Marinette, Alya, and Nino were walking home together.  Alya had her arm over Marinette's shoulder as they walked.  "I'm so proud of you girl.  You did so well talking to Adrien today."

"Thanks!  I feel a lot more confident around Adrien after he called me an 'Everyday Ladybug'.  I think it also helped that Kagami was between us, so I couldn't get too lost in his perfect eyes."  Marinette became quite as she put on a dreamy expression.

After a moment, Alya nudged Marinette out of it.  "You know, if Adrien has a thing for Ladybug, and he called you an 'Everyday Ladybug', that means by the Transitive Properties of Love, he has a bit of a thing for you too."

"I don't think Math and Love work together that way, but yeah, I do think I have a chance.  I've just got to keep working hard."

"How did you know that he has a thing for Ladybug?"

"I told you, it's a secret."

Nino decided to remind the girls of his presence, *Cough Cough* "Isn't girl talk supposed to happen when guys aren't around?  Or do I not count as a guy anymore?"

Marinette blushed, "Nino! why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"Why are you yelling at me? we all left the restaurant together."

They reached an intersection, and Marinette pointed off to the side, "I've got to head this way to pick up a couple things, I'll see you guys later."

"Bye M."

"Bye Dudette."

After crossing the street, Alya gave Nino and annoyed look, "What is with your boy?  Why is he trying to ruin my two favorite ships?  Pushing Chat Noir onto Marinette so he can have Ladybug for himself... that's not happening."

"The dude's been locked up his whole life, he doesn't know better.  Don't worry, we'll make Adrienette and Ladynoir happen.  So, why do you think Chat was really following Marinette around?  Do you think he was scoping her out to be a hero?"

"That would be so _cooool_.  Let's try to get Adrien to be one too, and we can all be heroes together, but no telling Chloe, she'd just ruin it and hog all of his time."  After walking and talking a couple minutes, an idea popped in Alya's head.  "Hey Nino, what if we try to make Adrien jealous?  Convince him that Chat does have a crush on Marinette?"

"Do you think that'll make him realize his feelings for her?  Wouldn't that mean that Ladybug is available for him to somehow make a move?"

"Hm, maybe.  We'll need to think about this a little bit."

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Marinette and Tikki were heading in their own direction.  "Marinette, I'm so proud of you too.  You really did do a good job today."

"Thanks Tikki."  Marinette smiled down at her purse where Tikki was peaking out.

"So how did you really know that Adrien likes Ladybug?"

"I didn't, not really at least.  Adrien kind of sounded like how Chat does when he teases me, so it kind of just brought out my inner Ladybug.  When Lila was here for that one day, she asked Adrien if he had a soft spot for the bug, or something like that, so I've occasionally wondered if it was true or not."

"Well, if he's starting to see the Ladybug in you," ' _and you're starting to see the Chat Noir in him_ ' "then I'm sure things will start to work out between you too."

"Thanks Tikki, I can't wait until I see him tomorrow.  Maybe I can impress him with my fighting skills."

 

* * *

 

 

"Ladybog:

Today's Akuma was a criminal that was had a wounded pride due to being beaten up by a little 14 year old girl that he tried to rob.  Unsurprisingly, he was defeated so fast that no one caught his name.  Just a glance into his eyes and terror would wash over you, and then he's demand your money and valuables, which you'd be too scared to refuse.  Paris' own Adrien Agreste has coined this Akuma 'Tarrif-Eyed'...."

Gabriel Agreste stormed out of his office and straight into Adrien's room.

Adrien was eating his boring salad while sitting at his computer doing homework.  "What's wrong Father?"

"I just saw you named today's Akuma, I was just making sure you didn't sneak out again."

"No, but my friends were nearby and I was texting with them."

"Very well son."  Gabriel left the room and reached to close the door before pausing.  "Adrien"

"Yes Father?"

"Don't go naming the Akuma's anymore, I don't want you to become a target." ' _I can't have my son choosing better names than me._ '

"Yes Father."


	3. A chat with Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- Kagami and Luka help defeat an Akuma  
> \- During lunch Marinette tells the group almost everything about the time she helped Chat with the Evillustrator.  
> \- It's revealed that Adrien has a crush on Ladybug.  
> \- Kagami and Luka decide to get Adrien to realize he has feelings for Marinette, and hopefully get over his crush on Ladybug.  
> \- Alya and Nino decide that by the Transitive Properties of Love, since Adrien has a crush on Ladybug he must also have a crush on his 'Everyday Ladybug', and they start plotting on how to get him to realize it.
> 
> Now:  
> \- Some Marichat time.  
> \- More revelations occur, but not all of them are entirely honest.  
> \- Someone get Plagg some cheese.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've realized that it might be a bit difficult for the reader to keep track of the timeline across multiple chapters. The first few chapters will be squished together in time, but after a week or so, things will spread out a little bit. I'll go back and add the time to the first two chapters.

**Sunday Night (2 days after Hero's Day):**

Marinette puts her pencil down, closes for textbook, and stretches.  Tikki floats over and sits on the textbook.  "Ok Marinette. you've finished your homework, ate dinner, and watered your plants... is there anything else you want to do or are you ready to tell me what's on your mind?"

Marinette sighs, "Luka and Kagami said that Chat was following me.  Do you think he's going to want to give me a miraculous?  I don't know how I'll turn him down without him getting disappointed in me."

"Don't worry Marinette, that's why Master Fu asked for both of you to make a list, so he can choose himself and Chat won't know if you're one of the new chosen or not.  Maybe Chat just has a crush on you."  Tikki ended with a giggle.

Marinette dropped her head onto her desk, "That'd be even worse!  I've already had to break his heart as Ladybug, I can't do it again as Marinette."

"If he does like both sides of you, then maybe you should be willing to give him a chance."

Marinette glared at Tikki, "Adrien is finally starting to notice me, and I want to concentrate on that.  I can't lead Chat on, he deserves better than that, and I don't want to hurt him anymore either."

Tikki landed on Marinette hair, and patted her head.  "Everything will work out in the end."

A thud was made up on the balcony.  "What's that."  Marinette climbed up onto her bed, and then a yelp and another thud was heard.  She opened her hatch, peaked her head out, and saw Chat laying down on the balcony holding one of her potted plants in the air.  "Chat?"

"Don't worry Purrinces, your plant if fine... I mean, it was never in danger to begin with."  Chat stood up and gently put the plant back in it's spot.

Marinette pulled herself onto her the balcony, and put her hands over her heart and batted her eyelashes.  "My hero, rescuing a plant that wasn't in danger until you showed up.  How can I ever thank you for not breaking it?"  Marinette giggled and put her hands on her hips.  "For what do I owe the purleasure for see one of Paris' superhero a second time today?"  Marinette gave a concerned look, "Is an Akuma after me?"

Chat rubbed his neck nervously, "No no, you're safe.  I just wanted to make sure you were ok after the akuma and fighting that thug."

"Thug?  Which thug?  I beat up like three of them today."  Marinette smirked at Chat.  "You don't have to worry about me, I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."  Marinette noticed that Chat was fidgeting.  "Hey Chat, why are you really here?"

Chat was surprised that she noticed.  "Well, I was wondering, um... well... if you'd like to be a superhero?"

Marinette inhaled in surprise, ' _Why is he asking me?  This isn't how we're supposed to do this!  Maybe I should just play it off._ '  Marinette exhaled, "Chat, are you offering me your ring?  I'm flattered, but shouldn't we go on a date first?

Chat blushed, "What?  No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that.  I'm in love with Ladybug."

Marinette realized what she said and her hands started flailing around, "I was just joking, I don't want to go on a date with you.  Wait!  I mean, I wasn't asking you out, I'm sure you'd make a great boyfriend.  I mean, I'm not interested in dating you.  Not that there's anything wrong with you..." she finished with a more timid voice, "I just have a crush on someone else."  And she looked away.  ' _Stupid Tikki!  Why'd she have to suggest that Chat might want to date me?_ '

' _Classic Marinette_ '  Chat started chuckling and then spoke in a teasing voice, "Oh? Purrincess who could be more charming and roguishly handsome than Chat Noir?"

Marinette snorted, "Maybe you're handsome under the mask, but you're no model."

"Model?  Oh, I know!  It's that model boy that you have your walls covered in."

Marinette crouched down and covered her face with her hands.  She whined, "Just get it over with and kill me know."

' _Wait, was I right?  When did this happen?_ '  Chat crouches down and puts his hand on her shoulder.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you... I just meant for it to be a little friendly tease."

Marinette took her hands off her face.  "It's ok, I just get really flustered when I think about Adrien, or when I see him, or hear him, or am in the vicinity of him."

' _Is that why she's been acting that way the whole time?_ ' "Sound like you got it bad.  Not that I stalk you or anything, but I notice you from time to time around the city, usually helping someone, and it doesn't seem like you're dating anyone at least.  Did he turn you down after he found out from that TV show?"

"What?  No, he asked me about it, but I lied to him and said I was just a fan of the clothing line, that part was true."  Marinette stood up, "Ug, I'm the worst.  I hate lairs, but I lied to him.  I'm such a hypocrite."

"Why did you lie to him?"

"Because I wanted to be able properly tell him on my own terms.  I have tried several times, but something always goes wrong."

' _When?'_   "Oh, how so?"

"Usually I try to talk to him, but I can't get the words out before someone pulls him away, or I just panic and run away."  Marinette groans.

"What about your... uh... not usual attempts?"

"Something went wrong each of those times, and I'm starting to think that it's not a coincidence that Akuma attacks have happened during each of them."

 _'How have I not noticed any of this?_ '  "What do you mean?"

"Well, for my first real attempt, I made a scarf for Adrien's birthday.  I tried to give it to him in person, but I was having trouble just saying 'Happy Birthday', ug I'm so pathetic."

Chat interrupts, "You're not pathetic."

Marinette ignores him, "Then Chloe pushed me out of the way and started talking to him.  I decided it'd be easier to leave it at his house, so I gave it to his secretary.  Later on I realized that I forgot to sign it, and I didn't tell Nathalie my name.  That's when the Bubbler attacked, so I took the opportunity to sneak into his house and attached a note with my name on it.  The next day Adrien showed up to school wearing the scarf, but he said that his dad got it for him.  He looked so happy to get something other than a pen, that I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth."

"Oh"

"Another time I decided it might be easier to call him and invite him to the movies.  When I called, I got his voicemail, so I left a message, but it was so embarrassing that I decided to delete the voicemail."

' _I guess that explains why I don't remember getting a voicemail from her_ '

"I wish that story ended there."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I pressed the wrong button, so the message was saved instead.  I realized that he was at fencing, so I snuck into the boys locker room, found his locker by calling his phone repeatedly, unlocked his locker, and attempted to unlock his phone.  I took too long with his phone, and the boys cam back into the locker room to change, but I was able to escape without anyone noticing me.  I got home and was dusting the phone for prints when Alya called me telling me she couldn't help because you, I mean your copycat, stole a painting from the Louvre.  Oh, Alya was with me when I made the phone call, but she had to split afterwards to cover your and Ladybug's statue thingy.  So anyway, I spent the rest of the day learning how to hack into phones, and Alya helped eventually."

"So you delete the message then?  How did you return the phone to him?"

"I was going to tell him that I found it, but I heard him telling Nino that it must have gone missing in the boy's locker room, so I panicked and slipped it into his bag and knocked the bag over in the process so he'd find it."

"That's both amazing and tariff-eyeing."

Marinette groaned, "Why'd you mention the Akuma?"

"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and I pawsitively have no regrets."  Chat notices Marinette roll her eyes at the pun.  "So, are there any other failed attempts?"

"Well, on Valentine's Day I saw Adrien throw away a poem he was writing, so I looked through the garbage to find it, I know, I was being creepy, and I read his poem.  'Your hair is dark as night, your pretty bluebell eyes.  I wonder who you are beneath that strong disguise.  Everyday we see each other, I hope that you'll be mine.  Together our love could be so true, please be my Valentine.'  My friend convinced me that the poem was about me, because no one else in school has 'hair dark as night' with 'bluebell eyes', but I'm not so sure anymore because the 'strong disguise' hasn't sit well with me, the metaphor feels too much of a stretch... wait a minute... he has a crush on Ladybug! and that poem totally describes Ladybug!  I'm such a stupid idiot... wait a minute, what did he mean, 'everyday we see each other'?"

Chat was sweating, "Well, you know, they're both famous, right?  His face is all over the city and she swings around all the time and her picture is on TV a lot and on the internet."

"Oh... yeah... I guess that makes sense."  Marinette stared off into the distance, contemplating this revelation.

Chat exhaled.  ' _This girl might be too dangerous for me to be around_ '  "So you read the poem and you thought it was about you, so then what happened?"

"I decided to write a response to his poem, it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.  The problem was that when I went to sign the poem, a ladybug landed on it, and then Alya started blabbing about ladybugs, and I'm pretty sure that I kind of forgot to sign the poem... again."

"Oh!"  Chat quickly covered his mouth before putting his hand down.  ' _What do I say?_ '  Marinette looked at him with a raised eyebrow.  "I was just thinking about how terrible it feels to put in hard work for something like that, and then have it all fall apart at the end.  I spent a bit of time writing Ladybug Valentine poems myself.  In the end I decided to just straight out confess, but as I was about to say the words, I got hit by Dark Cupid's arrow, and turned evil."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that Kitty.  What poems did you write for her?"

' _Shoot, why'd I say that?_ '  Chat nervously rubbed the back of his neck, "I, um, they're too clawful to say out loud."

Marinette giggled, "Well duh, that's why I want to hear them."

"Soooo, anymore attempts?"

"I see how it is.  I tell you all of my embarrassing secrets and you tell me nothing."

"Well I do have a secret identity to protect."

"Uh huh, sure."  Marinette looked skeptical.  "I don't think so, but I did enter a gaming tournament to hang out with Adrien, which caused Gamer to happen.  Another time I was hoping to get ice cream with Adrien, but his dad wouldn't let him out of the house, and I ended up over reacting and cause the Glaciator.  I tried to join the fencing team, and then I made a bad call which caused Riposte.  I once got my friends involved to try and manufacture a date by putting a fake no parking sign next to his bodyguards car, but that almost caused the bodyguard to be akumatized, but at the last second Gigantitan was made instead.  When Adrien and I was chased around the city by his fans, his bodyguard was actually akumatized, as Gorizilla... ok, maybe that one wasn't my fault.  But then Kung Food happened when Adrien was helping me speak to my Chinese uncle.  Adrien and I were working on a class movie together when Horrificator happened.  I was in a class picture with Adrien which is when Reflekta happened.  Adrien and I were dancing together at Chloe's party, and Despair Bear was made.  Adrien and I were going to be dancing in a music video together, but then Frightningale happened.  Those last few were totally Chloe's fault.  Style Queen turned Adrien into glitter while he was wearing the hat I made... speaking of the hat.  I made the hat for a contest that Adrien's dad was hosting, and my inspiration for the hat came from the same event that caused Mr Pigeon to be made.  How messed up is that?  Hawkmoth and I were inspired by the same event.  It wasn't my fault, but I was right there thinking about something sort of related to Adrien.  I was on the phone with Adrien when Anansi attacked me.  I helped cause Troublemaker when my crush was revealed on TV.  From Sandboy, I learned that my nightmare is Adrien being in love Chloe and he'd have a hamster named Marinette.  That night was exhausting, Nightmare Adrien chased me through the whole city.  The worst was Frozer.  Adrien asked me to help him plan a date with Kagami, and then it became a double date, which I was a part of."

"Are you, are you done?"

"Yeah, I think so.  It feels like a relief saying all of that.  Some of those things not even Alya knows about."

"Wow, so that was a lot there.  Do you remember every Akuma by how it relates to you and Adrien?"

"Now that I think about it, it does seem that way."

"The way you described everything, it does sound like Hawkmoth is trying to keep you and Adrien apart.  I'm sure that's not the case, but that's a lot of coincidences."

"Yeah, I have the worst luck."

Chat laughed, "I think I got you beat there, my superpower is that I have bad luck.  How do you know that it's you with the bad luck and not Adrien, who's been missing out on spending time with you."

Marinette rolled her eyes.  "You're such a flirt."

Chat rubbed the back of his neck, "Sorry, I didn't mean to.  I guess it just sort of happens when I look at girls with hair dark as night in pigtails and pretty bluebell eyes."

Marinette blushed, "Wait, are you saying you only flirt with me and Ladybug?"

"I thought I only flirted with Ladybug, but I guess I did just flirt with you.  I definitely don't flirt as my normal civilian self, I mean, at all, and as Chat Noir you're my only friend besides Ladybug, sooooo yeah, I only flirt with you two."

"Oh"

"Wait, did you say that you helped your crush go out on a date with a different girl?"

"Yes?"

"And you let someone else take credit for the gift you made for your crush?"

"Yes?" ' _What is he getting at?_ '

"You really are an amazing purrincess.  You're heart is really too big, which is why I think you would make a great..."  Chats weapon buzzed, "Oh shoot, it's time to meet up with the other heroes."  Chat gently took Marinette's hand and lifted it up as he bowed down to kiss her knuckles.  "We'll have to finish this conversation later."

"Ok, bye Kitty.  Be safe."

Chat took out his baton and got ready to leap off the balcony, and stopped.  He turned around and stared at his princess with suspension in his eyes.  "You!"  He pointed his finger at her accusingly.

Marinette squeaked, "Me!"

"Yes you.  This whole conversation you managed to avoid talking about my offer to make you a superhero.  You told me countless embarrassing stories to keep me distracted."

Marinette was fidgeting, "All of those stories were true."

"I didn't say they weren't true, I said they were distracting.  Why don't you want to be a superhero?  When you helped with Evillustrator, I saw how brave you are and how much you want to help people, so you can't convince me I'm wrong about that."

Marinette averted her eyes from Chat, "I'm incredibly clumsy, I can't make it through the day without falling over multiple times."

"Ladybug is clumsy, but her Miraculous makes up for that.  Besides, that thug you flipped over today wouldn't call you clumsy."

"I just spent all this time explaining how I can't even talk to my crush, and none of my plans work out."

"Putting on the mask will give you some confidence, you'll be able to talk to Adrien better with it."

"And have him fall in love with a mask?"

"Ok, fine, then don't talk to him, but that doesn't disqualify you from being a superhero."

Marinette had no response, but she was fidgeting a lot.  Chat moved and looked directly in her eyes, searching for answers in them.  Marinette kept trying to avoid looking into his eyes, but Chat wouldn't let her.  Marinette increased her fidgeting and Chat knew he was breaking her.

Marinette took a deep breath, "Have you talked to Ladybug about having me join the team?"

"No, I get to choose my own people for half the team.  Why, what is she going to tell me?  That you're Rena Rouge?"  Chat chuckled, then his eyes grew wide, and he circled around Marinette.  "Hm, no, she has a boyfriend.  You're probably not Carapace either."

Marinette fidgeted some more and then she smirked, "Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous"

Chat laughed, "Stop it, I know you're not Chloe, you're just distracting me again."

In a flirty voice, "So you're saying I'm a distraction?"  She batted her eyelashes at Chat.

Chat whined, "Purrincess, come on.  What's the deal?"

In an annoyed tone, "What's your deal?  Why are you being so insistent?"

Chat's ears drooped, "I'm pretty sure that Rena Rouge and Carapace are friends with Ladybug's civilian self.  They may not know her identity, but she still has her friends by her side, and I want that myself and, well, I couldn't think of anyone that I'd want to on adventures with more than you, besides Ladybug of course."

Marinette looked concerned, "Kitty, don't you have friends outside the mask?"

Chat let out a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a scoff.  "I do have friends as my civilian self, but my civilian self is the mask.  You're my only other friend as my real self, as Chat."

""I don't understand."

"My Fa- uh, parental unit is very concerned about my image for the sake of the family business, so I have to pretend to be the perfect son.  I'd get in trouble if my parental unit had found out that I made a pun in public, because it's not 'proper'."  He made finger quotes for proper and said it with some disdain.

"Oh"  Marinette's eyes started to water, as she watched Chat express his sadness and annoyance.

Chat thought about Nino and the fact that he was dating the Ladyblogger. "Besides that, there are other complications with my friends.  I've seen their courage and kindness, so that isn't an issue, but I doubt their ability to keep their identities a secret."

"And you think I could keep being a superhero from my best friend, the Ladyblogger?"

Chat looked sheepish, "Well, as my civilian self, I've talked to a few of your classmates, and they had no idea that you helped out with the Evillustrator, so it seems you can keep a secret."  ' _Maybe Alya isn't as observant as I thought she was.  I'll add Nino to the list._ '  Chat shifted to a teasing tone, "Besides that, the fact that you're clumsy would throw off suspicion to you being a superhero."

"Hey!"

Chat smirked, "What?  You're the one that said you're too clumsy to be a superhero...  So you really don't want to be a superhero?  Why not? It really doesn't seem like you."

Marinette sighed, "Ok fine.  So you know how when I helped with the Evillustrator, Ladybug had to go 'on a secret mission'?"  Marinette made air quotes as she said that.

"Yeah?"

"Well, the truth was that she was actually nearby the whole time.  She was curious how I'd act under pressure.  You see, the Ladyblogger is obsessed with finding out your identities, to the point that it scares Ladybug.  We made a deal where Alya gets more than her fair share of sound bites and an occasional exclusive interview, and I betray my best friend by sabotaging her quest of finding out your identities.  She tells me everything, so I'm already up to date on her theories, but I sometimes need to steal some evidence, or plant conflicting evidence.  When she suspects someone, I'll tell Alya that I saw that person and Ladybug or you at the same time, so she'll give up on that person."  Marinette leaned on her balcony railing and sighed, "I know that it's for the safety of you two, Alya's too, and all of Paris, so I don't feel toooo guilty about it, especially since Alya gets stuff for her blog out of the deal, but I do feel a bit guilty.  Someday Alya will figure out what I've been doing, and I don't know if she'll forgive me."

"Oh"

"I told you before that I hate lairs, but I have to lie to help you keep this city safe.  Now that Chloe is Queen Bee, I'm also watching her to make sure that she's at least working towards being a better person, and I keep Ladybug updated on her progress.  I hate Chloe, but I'm basically in charge of deciding on if she's living up to being a superhero.  All of this is a lot of stress, on top of the normal life and school stresses... adding more responsibilities might be a bit too much."

Chat leaned on the balcony next to Marinette, "I had no idea, Ladybug never told me she had someone helping her."

"Ladybug tries to be very cautious, annoyingly so.  She hates lairs too, and she hates keeping secrets, especially from you.  Chat, please don't doubt that you're very important to her."

"Did she tell you that?"

"Not with words."

"Hm, I'm really late now purrincess, but can you give it some thought?  I can come back in a couple of days."

"Ok Chat, I'll think about it."

Chat smiled, "Thank you purrincess."  Chat moved to leap off the balcony, but he felt a tug on his tail.

"Wait!  Regardless of my decision, I still want to be friends.  My balcony is open any night that you want to visit.  If you come during the day, Alya might see you, and then she'll start living out of my balcony hoping to see you again, but night time visits should be fine."

Chat grinned, "Oh, 'Night Time Visits'?  I thought you didn't fancy this feline that way."

Marinette's face was completely red, but her embarrassment quickly turned annoyance.  Looking directly into his eyes, she poked his chest.  "If you keep that up, I'll take you to the vet to get fixed so I won't have to worry about you getting any ideas."

Her expression and body language reminded Chat of an angry Ladybug, and he was suddenly worried about getting thrown across the city.  "I'll see you soon purrincess, until then, try to avoid getting attacked by any akumas."  He gave a salute and then leapt away.

Tikki came out of hiding and landed on Marinette's shoulder, the two of them watched Chat fade into the night.  "I know Tikki, I said too much to Chat, and I shouldn't have invited him back... it's just that I couldn't handle making him disappointed in me, and he seemed like he really needs a friend."

"It's ok Marinette, he really didn't leave you a choice.  At least he knows all about your crush on Adrien, so he probably won't ask you out for a while."  ' _At least not as Chat Noir_ '

Marinette blushed, hid her face in her hands, and groaned.  "Why didn't I think about the whole spying on Alya idea first?  I could have saved my dignity."

 

A few rooftops away, Chat hid behind a chimney not noticing Ladybug leaving Marinette's balcony.  "Plagg, claws in!"

Plagg observed Adrien's sullen expression.  "Hey kid, what's wrong?  Do you need some cheese?"

"No.  Marinette is in love with me."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"No!  I'm in love with Ladybug, that means I'm going to have to break Marinette's heart."

' _Geez, these two are so frustrating_ '  "Why do you have to break her heart?  It's not like she confessed to Adrien."

"If I don't, then it'll be like I'm leading her on, and she deserves better than that, and I don't want to hurt her."

"Listen kid, Ladybug keeps turning you down.  Now that you know Marinette likes you, why don't you give it time to sink in, and get to know her better, both as Adrien and as Chat Noir.  Maybe in a few weeks you'll feel differently, and if not, then you can turn her down."

"Wow, that sounds really smart of you Plagg, and surprisingly helpful."

"Of course I'm smart, I'm old enough to have smote the dinosaurs."  Plagg flew up in front of Adrien's face and puffed out his chest, "Now if you tell anyone that I gave you advice on gross mushy feelings, I'll smite you on the spot!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of people seem to play up how oblivious Adrien is, but I think that's mostly limited to his own feelings, social cues, and Marinette's feelings for him. Since Chloe was his only friend growing up, he thinks girls that like him would act more like Chloe, or screaming fan girls. He's probably also used to people at his photo shoots lying to him to get into his father's good graces, so he's used to lairs, but Lila is a bit of an exception initially, because he was hoping to learn more about Ladybug. Also, Lila is smoother at telling lies than anyone he's met (even if they are utterly ridiculous).  
> Beyond that, he's used to most of Ladybug's expressions, which is how he knew Marinette was deflecting.


	4. 'If you want to make God laugh...'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- Before meeting up with the other Heroes, Chat decides to pay his Purrincess a visit and asks if she wants to be a Superhero.  
> \- Marinette doesn't want to disappoint Chat, so she avoids the questions hoping that Ladybug talks to him before she has to answer.  
> \- As part of the avoidance, Marinette reveals way too much about her love for Adrien.  
> \- Chat was about to leave when he realizes Marinette was avoiding the topic, Marinette makes up a story about how she's working for Ladybug to spy on Alya's quest to learn the identities of the heroes and reform Chloe, and she's not sure if she can handle another secret job.  
> \- Marinette tells Chat to visit again so they can be better friends.  
> \- Plagg convinces Adrien to spend some time getting to know Marinette as both Adrien and Chat before he decides if he has to break her heart or not.
> 
> Now:  
> \- The heroes finally meet up to discuss their plans and other ideas.

**Sunday Night (2 days after Hero's Day):**

As Ladybug and Carapace near the meeting spot, she sees Queen Bee and Rena Rouge waiting and Chat Noir is just arriving.  ' _Why's he just getting here, he left my house before me, and I needed to get Carapace his Miraculous?_ '  They arrive with a small thud.

"Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!  I've been waiting here mostly by myself for over 20 minutes.  With this kind of professionalism it's no wonder you guys need help."

Ladybug sighs, "Sorry, I got stuck in a conversation that I couldn't get out of."

Chat chimed in, "Same here."

Queen Bee glared at the two of them.

Ladybug looks around, "Ok, who wants to go first?"

Queen Bee pretends to inspect her nails, "Well, I was here first after all."

"Ok, go."

"I was speaking to Daddikins, ahem, I mean, the Mayor, and he can get us a couple of abandoned warehouses to use.  One will be more open, and the other will have more smaller rooms to cramp our fighting.  They police are getting a bigger budget this year for akuma evacuation equipment and extra training, so he can hide the warehouses in that budget, so we can have the lights working and whatever."

Chat puts his paw on Queen Bee's shoulder, "That's a very good idea and will help keep our training a secret."

Queen Bee takes his paw off of her shoulder, "I'm not done yet ally cat.  My da- ahem, the Mayor will get us a list of police training specialists from outside the city.  We can choose which specialists we think will be useful, they have them on how to talk to witnesses and suspects to get information, identify lies, how to look for clues, how to properly enter a building or room when you don't know where a bad guy is, other teamwork exercises."

' _If she knew I was Adrien she's be hugging me instead of taking my hand off her shoulder._ '  "That's great!  But why only specialists from outside the city?"

Queen Bee crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, "Obviously so that they'll leave the city after a few days, so we don't have to worry about them spilling stuff about us to Hawkmoth.  I also have an update on one of the city's anti-akuma initiatives.  The Mayor thinks my school will have a full time psychologist working there in about a week.  It's the first school to get one since so many of the students are so emotional."

Rena cuts in, "I really have to wonder WHY everyone at YOUR school is so emotional."

Ladybug sighs, "Now now, we're all a team here."

"Yeah, besides, I've been working hard to be a better role model for this city.  Ever since daddikins was akumatized, I've been seeing my own psychologist, and it's helped a lot.  There will be regularly occurring mandatory time slots for each student to meet the school psychologist, so that students can keep any issue a secret if they want to, and parents won't be allowed to forbid it."

Ladybug tilts her head to the side a little bit, "What parents would forbid their children from getting help?"

"I'm sure Adrikin's father would forbid it, so his son doesn't look weak, or hurt the company brand in some way.  With they way his father treats him, and his missing mother, he probably needs it more than any of the other students."

Chat looks uncomfortable, "This meeting isn't to air out civilian's dirty laundry."

Ladybug smirks, "I've met Mr. Agreste, I doubt he'd allow Adrien to even have actual dirty laundry."  ' _Oh no, please don't think about Adrien's clothes being in the hamper and not on him.  Ahhh, why'd I think that?  Someone please distract me!_ '

Rena snorts, "Ha, that's so true.  From what I've seen of the man, if he discovered that Adrien was a superhero, he'd probably demand the Miraculous so that Adrien couldn't further embarrass the family name by running on rooftops."

' _That thought has occurred to me before, but why is everyone talking about Father and myself?_ '  "Um, how about we move this along?"

Ladybug looked at Chat, ' _What's with him, he usually wants to drag things out as long as possible._ '

"Whatever.  Other parents might have other reasons for not wanting their kid to see a psychologist, mostly not wanting people to think their kid is crazy or whatever.  Parents can be stupid, stubborn, and utterly ridiculous some times, but the kids won't look bad if everyone is doing it."

After a moment, Ladybug clapped her hands together, "Well, that's great!  I think it'll help a lot.  Anything else?"

"Nope, that's it for now."

"Ok, who want's to go next?"

Rena speaks up, "I will.  So, Carapace and myself have looked into several 'chatting' apps, and while there are a few that could work, I just don't trust any of them."

Chat smiled at the use of his name.  "Why don't you trust them?"

"It just seems that every single tech company makes money by selling information, so if Hawkmoth has enough money, he could just by every conversation that has superhero names or words in them.  Sure, a lot of people text about us, but what if someone mentions the word kwami, or Hawkmoth knows the names of our kwami and someone mentions their kwami's name?  In the end, everyone will have to be a bit paranoid and we might even need to speak in code a bit so we're not figured out.  But I had an idea.  I know of someone that we can trust, and he's a genius.  We could have him make us an app, and he'll make sure that no one can figure out who we are, even if he was mind controlled himself.  Knowing him, he could probably have something for us to use in no time, though he'll need to know that superheroes are using it so he understands why it'll need to be so secure."

Ladybug puts her hand on her chin as she concentrates.  "I think I know who you're talking about, and that plan sounds like a good idea.  So you'll be in charge of talking to him as Rena Rouge?"

"Yup."

"Any other ideas?"

Carapace straightens up, looking nervous, "I was thinking that we should talk to the Ladyblogger, and get all of her information of the past attacks, and we'll look for patterns.  Maybe Hawkmoth can only initially akamatize people within a certain distance from him, or maybe the akuma can only get so far from him.  Many of the attacks happen at the same school, so maybe that's the closest school to him.  We'll look at what data we have and if there's something else we want, maybe the Ladyblogger can do followup interviews for us."

Ladybug smiled, "That sounds good.  Make sure the ladyblogger knows to only do followups with children and teenagers and in private, Hawkmoth is an adult man and we know nothing about the Peacock wielder, but it's possible that one of them even works at that school, as doubtful as it my seem."

"Sure thing Ladydude."

"I think Chat and I will have our hands full with the normal akumas and we'll need to take turns training the new heroes.  I'm sure that master knows how to properly train superheroes, but he's not ready to reveal himself, so he'll probably come up with the plans and we'll have to handle the actual training.  Queen Bee, since you've revealed your identity, you're not going to be able to keep your Miraculous.  Carapace, I'm going to have to take back your Miraculous for now as well.  Master has plans for you, but I'm not sure when he'll act on them."

"What kind of plans does he have for me?"

Ladybug made air quotes, "'One who is burning with impatience can never eat hot porridge.'"

Carapace frowned, "So I'm going to learn how to eat hot porridge?  That doesn't seem very heroic."

Ladybug shrugged.  "Hey Chat, can we talk in private for a minute?"

"Yeah sure"  The other three heroes watch as the two of them head to another rooftop.

"Hey Chat, are you alright?  You haven't made a pun all night."  Ladybug's concerned eyes stared straight into his.

Chat sighed, "Yeah, I've just been thinking about things.  I was hoping a friend of ours would want to be a hero, but she's against it."

Ladybug put her hand on his shoulder, "Chat, I'm sure she has some good reasons, but we're supposed to wait until Master Fu makes his decisions before we mention the whole superhero thing."

His ears drooped, "Sorry, I'm sure Master Fu will pick her, I was just too excited."

"Do you have a list of potential heroes yet?"

Chat hands her a folded piece of paper, "It's got a few names on it, I'll try to have the rest in a couple days."

"Thanks Chat."  Ladybug moved to rejoin the group but then stopped, "Chat, even if she doesn't want to be a superhero, you can still be friends with her, just be careful about it."

Still sounding a bit solemn, "Thanks Ladybug."  Both heroes rejoin the group to say their good nights and adjourn the meeting.


	5. Choosing the next hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- The heroes finally meet up to discuss their plans and other ideas.  
> \- Queen Bee says that the Mayor is finding a couple abandoned warehouse that the heroes can use for training.  
> \- The Mayor is also looking to get police training specialists from outside of the city.  
> \- All of the schools in Paris will be getting full time psychologist to help prevent akumas.  
> \- Rena is going to get Max to make a secure texting app.  
> \- Rena and Carapace will look over the past akumas to look for patterns that might reveal Hawkmoth.
> 
> Now:  
> \- Ladybug meets up with Master Fu to give the first set of names of potential heroes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually meant for the first part of this chapter to be posted in the last chapter, but I hit post instead of preview @_@

**Sunday Night (2 days after Hero's Day, Sunday is ending):**

Marinette slides open the door and enters the message parlor.  After closing the door she sits down in front of the table where a hot cup of tea is waiting for her, and she places the Bee and Turtle Miraculouses on the table.

"I trust everything went well Marinette."

Marinette proceeded to go over the other heroes' ideas while Master Fu occasionally nodded while sipping his tea and the kwamis shared some cookies.  "So Master, what do you think?"

Master Fu sipped his tea contemplatively, "Those are sound like good ideas to start with.  It might be difficult for you and Chat Noir to handle training the new chosen, while keeping up with all of your other responsibilities."

"I'm worried about that as well.  The first name on my list is someone who already has good combat skills using melee weapons, and I think she could be a good instructor."

Marinette hands Master Fu both hers and Chat Noir's lists.  Master Fu opens both lists and looks over them for a minute.  "Kagami Tsurugi, wasn't she Riposte?"

Marinette looked down, "Yes, she was akumatized because I made a bad call the first time she fenced against Adrien, which she had to win to get a spot in D'Argencourt's fencing class."

Master Fu frowned, "Isn't Adrien the best in his class?  Wou-"

Marinette interrupted, "You know about Adrien's fencing?"

"Yes, I've looked into all of the people that are close to you, to make sure they're good influences.  Wouldn't it make more sense for her to beat the weakest in the class to prove she's good enough to join?"

"There was one open spot, and D'Argencourt was holding tryouts to fill it.  She arrived late, and announced that she'd prove her worth by beating the classes strongest student."

"That sounds very arrogant, and unnecessarily confrontational."

"That's true, but I think it was to be expected.  Her mother and grandfather are both world renowned fencers.  I think she has to maintain her family's image, and having a certain level of superiority is required for that.  I don't know her very well.  She goes to an expensive private school, and the only person that I know that's friends with her is Adrien.  Everyone else calls her the Ice Queen."

"Hm, why isn't Adrien on your list, wouldn't he make a good combat instructor?"

Marinette closed her eyes, and guilt filled her voice.  "I'd love to have Adrien be a superhero with me, but most of the time I make a bad decision it's because I'm thinking about Adrien.  I'd probably get too distracted and lose to Hawkmoth.  Not only that, but it wouldn't be fair to Chat Noir if Adrien became a hero, it'd probably hurt him too much."

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

Marinette looked up at Master Fu with moistened eyes, "Chat Noir has confessed his feelings to Ladybug a couple of times now, and I've had to turn him down because of my feelings for Adrien."

"If Adrien wasn't in your life, would you still have turned Chat Noir down?"

"I don't know, I can't even imagine life without seeing Adrien almost every day.  To make things worse, earlier tonight, Chat Noir showed up at my balcony, and asked if I wanted to be a superhero.  He said that he really wanted to have a friend join him as a superhero, and I was the first one he thought of.  I declined the offer."  Marinette took a deep breath and exhaled, "I know I shouldn't have, but he looked so sad, so I promised to be friends with him and told him he could visit any time."

 "It's not wrong for you to want to be there for your partner, just be careful to keep your identities a secret.  If Hawkmoth couldn't create mind controlling akumas, then it would have been a good idea to reveal your identities a while ago."

"Really?"

"Yes, it would deepen your trust and understanding of each other, making you a better team.  If he spends time visiting Marinette, then maybe you can understand him better and you grow into a better partner for him, but if he doesn't understand Ladybug better, then you two might become unbalanced.  Maybe you can find a way to help him understand you better without revealing yourself."

 Marinette started to fidget.  Tikki noticed Marinette's uneasy and landed on her shoulder.  "Marinette, it's not that bad, just tell Master and get it over with."

Marinette took a deep breath and exhaled.  "When Chat asked me if I wanted to be a superhero, I tried to stall until he needed to meet up with Ladybug, so Ladybug could remind him of how this was supposed to work, but he eventually caught on and asked again.  I tried to turn him down, but he didn't believe I was being sincere, and he just kept looking at me, and looking at me, with his EYES!  and I sort of broke and told him mostly the truth about a couple of things."

Master Fu looked at Marinette, waiting for her to continue.

"Ug, now you're doing it too.  Did you teach him that?"  Marinette looked away, "I told him that I had an agreement with Ladybug, that I was spying on Alya to make sure she didn't figure out any secret identities and in return Alya would get exclusives.  Also that I was watching Chloe to make sure she was improving and becoming hero material."

"So he thinks you have a way to contact Ladybug?"

"Probably."

Master Fu closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled, and took a long sip of his tea.  "That is not ideal, but there is nothing we can do about it now.  You might as well use this to improve your bonds, but be careful, if it seems that a civilian knows Ladybug more than her own partner, Chat Noir might believe that Ladybug doesn't trust him or that he's not worthy of being her partner for not noticing things."

"Of course he's a worthy partner, he knows that he's the only partner for me!"

"How does he know that?  When was the last time you told him that?"

"I... uh... don't remember."  Marinette frowned.

"Well, that's something that's easy enough to fix as Ladybug.  I think this is enough talk about Chat Noir for tonight, it's getting late and you haven't finished telling me about, what did you say her nickname was?"

"Ice Queen.  To be honest, I think if you tested her, she'd fail."

Master Fu raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"

"When you tested me, you wanted to see if who would help you, correct?"

"That is correct."

"I don't think she would help you cross a street, even if she had nothing better to do.  I think her personal code is that everyone should take care of themselves.  At least, that what it seems like to me...  but this morning she saved us from the akuma.  I suspect that she'll want to get back at Hawkmoth for Akumatizing her, and that she likes to fight strong opponents or at least she enjoys a challenge."

Master Fu frowned, "None of that has swayed my doubts of her."

"I have my doubts too, but I think she's the best suited to train the new recruits.  Adrien and I will be going to her house tomorrow to spare a bit.  Someone tried to attack me this morning, and she saw me flip the guy over, so she wants to see how good I am.  Anyway, I can use tomorrow to get to know her better."

"Very well, let's consider this topic closed for tonight.  Now, there is another person that you and Chat Noir listed, and you even see the same good and bad qualities in this person.  Let's expand on that."  Master Fu picks up both lists to find the name of the person he's thinking about.

 

* * *

 

 

**Monday Morning (3 days after Hero's Day):**

Kagami's rapier was knocked away and Timebreaker grabbed her hand, causing her to start to fade.

"VENOM!"  Queen Bee tried to sting Timebreaker, but she was too slow and got hit instead.  Queen Bee started to fade away.

"MIR-"

"RENA!"

"Heh, too slow."  Timebreaker moved past the fading Rena and Carapace, and towards her next target.

Adrien was running away as fast as he could, but he couldn't stay ahead of Timebreaker while she was on her roller blades.  Timebreaker was moments away from stealing Adrien's time when Ladybug knocked him over and was standing in his place.  Ladybug turned to look at Timebreaker, but Chat Noir was between them, fading away.  "Chat! No!"

Timebreaker spoke, "Marinette!  Marinette!  Wake up!  You're having a nightmare."

As Marinette slowly opened her eyes, a red blob came into focus.  "Thanks Tikki, I was having that nightmare again, this time Kagami was in it.  Timebreaker got her first... the rest of the nightmare was the same."

"You should know that you're nightmare is wrong.  Kagami is already a good fighter, so she'll probably last longer than any of the others."

"I didn't say I thought it was a prophecy."  Marinette grabbed her phone and groaned, "By the time I get back to sleep, I'll have to get ready for school."

"Why don't you spend the time making treats to share with Adrien and Kagami during your sparing today."

Marinette shot up into a sitting position, "Tikki!  I get to spend time with Adrien after school today!  Today is going to be great!  Maybe even the best day ever!"

"Just make sure you don't go to school in your pajamas like that time you want to the movies with Adrien."

 

* * *

 

 

An exhausted Marinette walked up to the steps of the school where Alya and Nino were talking.  "Morning Alya, Morning Nino."

"Morning girl, woah, you're a mess.  Did you wake up early to bake me something delicious?"  Alya reached for a box in Marinette's hands.

Marinette quickly pulled the box away, "No touching, I made these to share with Adrien!"

"What are you sharing with me?"  Adrien was behind Marinette, walking up the stairs.

"Gah!  Cookies that we will eat you after Kagami with sparing... wait!  We won't eat you... not that you'd taste bad!"  Marinette took a deep breath, "What I mean to say is that they're cookies for us to eat after our sparing today at Kagami's house."

Adrien chuckled and patted Marinette on the shoulder.  "I'm looking forward to that."  The bell rang and Adrien started walking into the school before stopping, "You know Marinette, if you ever get hungry enough to consider eating me, just let me know and I'll have my bodyguard get us some food."

Marinette had a goofy expression on her face while she waved to the backs Adrien and Nino who were walking into the school.  In a dreamy voice, "I'm sure you'd be delicious."

"Girl, snap out of it or we'll be late."  Alya started pushing Marinette into the school.

Marinette's eyes widened, "Alya, I'm going to touch Adrien when we're sparing.  What do I do?"

"Relax girl, we have all day to plan the normal human conversations you'll have while you two have your hands all over each other doing 'Martial Arts' as the kids call it these days."

Marinette blushed and she grumbled, "Alya!  That's not helping."


	6. School before sparring at Kagami's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- Ladybug and Master Fu discuss Kagami being the next hero, who will help train the rest to fight.  
> \- Master Fu ships Marichat
> 
> Now:  
> \- Kim is a jerk  
> \- Nino and Adrien discuss love and crushes  
> \- Alix is a bad influence  
> \- Marinette and Adrien head over to spar with Kagami.

**Monday Lunch (3 Days after Heroes Day)**

The bell rings signalling end of class, and the start of lunch, which is a happy occasion for most, but Nino noticed that Adrien looked depressed while packing up his books.  "Dude, what's wrong?"

Adrien's stomach rumbled, and he looked embarrassed.  "I'm seriously missing that restaurant we went to yesterday, that burger was so good."

"Gross dude, you're actually drooling.  Don't you have a personal chef?"

"Yeah, but what's the point of having a personal chef when all he makes me is rabbit food?  I could probably find something better if I just spend lunch foraging in the park."

"Dude, if people saw you doing that, it'd start a crazy new tend in Paris.  All of the parks would be eaten bare within a couple of days."

Adrien whined, "Nino!  Don't even joke about that.  It'll probably happen now."

"Well, you can look forward to Marinette's pastries that she brought for your sparring session tonight."

Marinette chirped in, "Now macarons could eat you!  I mean..."  ' _Oh no, I did it again!_ ' Marinette's hands started flailing around.

Adrien put his hand on Marinette's shoulder and smiled, "I know what you mean.  Is it really ok to have some now?"

Marinette nodded her head vigorously, "Many have you want, can bakery refill now at the."  Marinette holds out the box.

Adrien reaches in and pulls out a strawberry macaron and pops it into his mouth.  As the sweet flavor fills his mouth, he closes his eyes to fully focus on macaron, his shoulders instantly loosen, and his mouth forms the biggest and truest smile that Marinette has ever seen on his face.  "Marinette, your parents really are the best bakers in Paris."

Marinette blushed, "Really?"

Adrien continued to smile as he looked into her eyes, "Really!"

Alya smirked, "Actually, Marinette made those macarons."

"Really?"

Marinette again nodded her head vigorously, "R-really!"

"You really are amazing Marinette.  You're so talented at so many things."  Adrien's phone buzzed and frowned, "My bodyguard is here, I have to go and eat some rabbit food now.  Can I grab a couple more?"

"S-sure!"

"Thanks, you're the best."  Adrien grabs a couple more macarons, "See you later!"  He runs out of the classroom.

Marinette waves at where Adrien used to be with a dreamy smile on her face, "S-see ya la-later."

A collective "Oooooooooo" fills the classroom.

Marinette freezes and slowly turns her head to see that over half the class is still here and they were all watching.

Rose puts her hands over her heart, "You too are so adorable together."

Kim walks over and reaches out towards the macarons, "Oh, those do look good!"

Alya slaps his hand away, "Keep your grubby hands off them Kim, she made them for when she'll hang out with Adrien and Kagami later."

Kim smirks at Marinette, "Interesting, I didn't think the Ice Queen was your type.  Can I have some macarons if I model for you?"  Kim starts flexing his muscles while showing off various poses, and then a stupid grin covers his face, "I'll even let you take pictures to put on your wall."

Marinette blushes and covers her face with her hands.

Alix pushes Kim out of the classroom, "That's enough out of you for today."

Marinette peaks at Nino through her fingers, "Nino, is Adrien's model diet really that bad?"

Nino sighs, "Yeah, it does seem that way.  His nutrition is precisely calculated based on the activities he does each day."

Marinette drops her hands to reveal a frown, "That's no way to live.  Do you think it'll be ok if I start sneaking him pastries?  Like, his dad won't notice if he gains half a pound and take him out of school or something?"

Alya puts her arm over Marinette's shoulder, "Good thinking girl!  The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"Alya, I wasn't thinking about that, I just want to make him happy."

"Sure, but maybe once you get him hooked on your pastries, maybe one day you don't give him any and instead hold it in your mouth, so he'll have to kiss you to get his pastry.  It'll be just like in that movies with the dogs and the spaghetti."

Marinette blushes and giggles, "Maybe I'll try that some day.  Ok, let's go to my house for lunch so I can restock."

Alya is overacting being disappointed, "Ok girl, if we have to, but you're buying."

"Deal!"  Marinette and Alya leave the classroom.

Nino rushes after then, "Don't I get a say in any of this?"

 

* * *

 

 

**Monday Afterschool**

Nino closes his locker and walks over to Adrien, "Hey Adrien, I was thinking about your sparring that you'll be doing at Kagami's..."

Adrien sorts his books between his locker and bag, "What about it?  Do you want to join us?"

"Nah, it's not my beat.  I was just thinking that you should be careful not to hut Marinette."

"Of course I'll be careful.  It's a practice fight, not a real life and death fight."

"Even if it's just an accident, it could be end up being bad for you.  A bunch of guys that have a crush on Marinette."

"Really?  I haven't noticed that."

"What?  Don't you remember when you helped me at the zoo?"

"Yeah, but you're dating Alya now."

"That's besides the point, I did have a crush on her, and do you remember when Chloe found Nathaniel's comic and revealed his crush on Marinette?"

' _Why did Chloe feel the need to do that?  At least she's acting more civil now, well sort of._ '  "Yeah, but he has a crush on Ladybug now."

"That doesn't mean that he doesn't also have a crush on Marinette... you do know people can have multiple crushes, don't you?"

"Really?  Doesn't that kind of cheapen it then?  You can't have multiple true loves."

"Dude, seriously?  Do you get all of your dating advice from anime or something?"

Adrien looks away from Nino.

Nino sighs, "My mom says that dating isn't about finding 'The One' or your 'True Love', but finding someone that you love and that loves you back, and then becoming partners that trust and respect each other.  It's also important that you make each other happy more than you make each other unhappy.  My mom says that people who love each other get divorced, because one or both parties stop trusting, respecting, or making the other happy and that's when things start to fall apart, and people often don't realize it until it's too late.  Or something like that."

"How did you get over your crush on Marinette so quickly and move onto Alya?"

"Actually, I didn't."

"What?"

"just to be clear, I am now completely over my crush on Marinette.  What I meant was that for a little while I liked them both, but as soon as I realized I liked Alya, I realized that we fit together better than Marinette and myself.  It took a while for my heart to properly readjust, but during that time I got to know Alya better, which helped.  Part of the reason we didn't date right after the zoo was because I needed my heart to readjust, and Alya needed to be sure of her feelings too... that the spark we felt at the zoo wasn't just because of the Akuma or being locked up together.  By the way, all of that was confidential."

"Of course Nino, won't tell a soul."

"Cool.  Back to my point, there was me, Nathaniel, Luka likes her too, you probably noticed when you went ice skating the first time."

 _'Now would be a good time to pretend she didn't tell me/Chat about her crush on me last night.'_ "Yeah, I thought they looked like a good couple."

Nino gave him a look and took a deep breath.

Adrien started rubbing the back of his neck, "I now know they aren't dating, but I could tell they had a chemistry together."

"I'm not sure if she is interested in Luka or not.  But that's just the 3 guys that we know about, I've heard rumors of other guys in different classes and grades having a crush on Marinette as well, and then all of a sudden yesterday we find out that Chat Noir has a crush on her too."

"WHAT?  Why do you think that?"

"Isn't it obvious?  He called her purrincess."

"He was just making a cat pun, he does that sort of thing."

' _Seriously Adrien?_ '  "Not the cat pun part, I mean the princess part."

"What about it?"

"There are four reasons a guy calls a girl princess.  One, she is actually a princess, which I'm pretty sure Marinette isn't.  Two, she is a spoiled brat, which she isn't.  Three, she is his daughter, and I don't think Tom Dupain can fit in Chat Noir's leather outfit.  And finally four, the guy is romantically interested in her."

"You forgot about reason five, he wants to make a cat pun."

"Adrien, dude, are you trying to be dense on purpose?"

 Adrien smirks, "If I wanted to be dense, I'd just decrease my volume."

Nino looks at him with a blank expression, "I have no idea what that means or why you think it's funny.  Back to the original point, if you end up hurting Marinette, a bunch of guys will probably be out to get you.  What if Chat Noir attacks you or something?"

 "I'm not worried about any of that.  Chat Noir is a superhero, he wouldn't hurt a civilian.  What would Nathaniel do to me?  Draw me in his comic in an unflattering light?  And Luka, play angry music at me?"

Nathaniel walks around the corner and stops right in front of Adrien, wearing a cold expression.  "I'm going to draw you in an unflattering light just for insulting me behind my back right now, but if you hurt Marinette I'll do so much worse.  Instead, what I'll do is wait for several days and then attack you in your sleep.  It won't matter what kind of security system your fancy house has, because I'll get myself akumatized.  Maybe my power will be to turn you into an actual comic."  Nathaniel turns and heads towards the door, while Adrien and Nino's mouths hang open.

"Bwahahahaha, you're expressions are priceless."  Adrien and Nino to see Alix holding her phone out at them while struggling to stop laughing.  "Alya... and Marinette are... going to love... these photos.  See Nath... I told you that... the acting classes would... totally be worth it."

Nathaniel turns to look at Alix, his expression is still cold, "I wasn't and I still am not acting.  Adrien just pisses me off thinking he can steal my Marinette from me."

Alix stop laughing, "Wait, are you serious?  You're still crushing on her?"

Nathaniel takes a picture of Alix and starts laughing himself, "You're face is just as good as theirs."

Adrien exhales in relief, ' _It's good to know he wasn't serious, I wouldn't want him to take Marinette on another Akuma date._ '  "Hey Nath, are you thinking of becoming an actor?"

Still smiling over his prank, "No, I'm doing it to learn how to draw better comics."

"I don't get it, how are they related?"

"Good actors can express a whole range of emotions through their body language.  I want to take that knowledge and improve my character's body language in the comics.  An amateur would have a character say 'I'm angry', when all you have to do is show a clenched fist or a scowl, which also feels more realistic."

Nino looks thoughtful, "That sounds like a good idea, maybe I should take some classes so I can give better direction in my next film.  Nath, can you send me info on that class?"

Nathaniel starts typing in his phone, "Sure, a new class will start in a few weeks, you should be able to join that one."

The door swings open and Alya walks in, "What are you still doing here Agreste?  Did you forget that you're taking Marinette to Kagami's?"

Marinette waved sheepishly from behind Alya.

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, "Right, sorry, I got distracted."  Adrien walks up to Marinette and holds out his hand, "Would the little lady care to join me to the... Ice Palace to thaw the Queen?"

Marinette blushes and looked at his hand for a moment before taking it, "S-sure!  l-l-love to!"

Alix rolls her eyes at the two of them being weird and coupley , "Hey Alay, you're going to love this picture and the story behind it."

Nino sighs in defeat, ' _The things I do to make Adrienette sail._ '

 

* * *

 

 

Adrien opens the door to his car and offers his hand to Marinette, "Ladies first."

Marinette blushes while wearing a beaming smile, and takes a deep breath, "You're such a gentleman."  She takes his hand and enters the car.

Adrien gets in the car and chuckles, "An Agreste always needs to be a gentleman, unless someone did something slightly wrong, in which case that person needs to be akumatized."

The bodyguard starts driving the car.

Marinette frowns, ' _Was that supposed to be a joke?_ '  "How many people has your father akumatized?"

"Oh?  I just know about the Bubbler and Simon Says, but he did both of those without leaving the house."

"I suppose getting two with the whole not leaving the house thing is a bit impressive. but I've actually caused more Akumas than him, and I may have helped cause a couple more on top of that."

 Adrien chuckles, "Your just trying to make me feel better about having a grumpy father."

"Yes"  Marinette starts flailing, "I mean, No! I mean, it's the truth.  I... um... once caused an akuma by sort of being too nice."

Adrien snorts, "Only you can cause an akuma by being too nice.  How'd you did it?  Inquiring minds want to know."

Marinette has a guilty expression, "A girl I baby sit really wanted to take home a Ladybug doll I made to play with it, but her mom said no, Ladybug got ripped, Manon was upset, so I let her sneak out s Lady Wifi doll.  Her mom found the doll and caused the girl to be akumatized.  I've been working on saying no to adorable little demons, I mean, angles since then."

Adrien laughs, "And here I thought trying to get Chloe to be nicer would prevent Akumas.  I'm pretty sure I've seen you help more people than you've akumatized, so you don't have to feel guilty about it."

Marinette snorts, "I'd like to see the day when Chloe akumatizes someone by being too nice."  The pair sit together in silence for a minute before Marinette breaks it.  "S-So..." ' _I was doing so good, why am I stuttering again!?_ ' "I guess you've heard people's nickname for Kagami?"

"Yeah, I get why people call her that, but she's not like that as much around me anymore.  I think a lot of it is because of trying to be formal because that's how her family is, and the rest is she just isn't into small talk."

"What's Kagami's house like?"

"Actually, this is my first time seeing her house.  I guess we get to experience it together."

Marinette narrows her eyes at Adrien and smirks, "I see how it is, you needed my help to go out on a date with Kagami, and now you need my help to visit her house... are you going to need my help at your wedding?  Have me whisper your vows into your ear?  And help you out with... uh..." ' _other things?'_ Marinette blushes, _'Shoot, I took that joke too far_ '

' _Help out with what?  Why is she blushing?  Oh, was she going to say kissing?_ '  Adrien blushes and looks away.  After it's clear that Marinette isn't going to continue, Adrien smirks and says in a teasing voice, "Well, you see, I don't know much about Japanese etiquette, so I'm hoping they won't notice me doing anything offensive because they're too busy being distracted by your tripping."

"Hey!"

Adrien chuckles, "I'm just teasing.  Besides, if you trip I'll be sure to catch you.  Regardless of what happens, I'm sure her mother will love you."

Concern covers her face, "What about her father?"

"Kagami has never mentioned him."  The car pulls up to a gate and stops.  "It looks like we're here."  Adrien gets out of the car and helps Marinette out as well.

"Hi Ma-ma-marinette"


	7. Sparring at Kagami's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- Marinette learns about how strict Adrien's diet is, and decides to help  
> \- Points out everyone that has a crush to Adrien, including Chat Noir  
> \- Nino explains how it's ok to have multiple crushes, and there's no such thing as 'The One' or 'True Love', even though Adrienette is his and Alya's OTP  
> \- Adrien and Marinette get some time to talk in the car
> 
> Now:  
> \- Luka is waiting outside of Kagami's house  
> \- Adrien, Kagami, and Marinette spar, while Luka plays battle music  
> \- Ladybug and Chat meetup to discuss one of the new recruits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be references to Season 3 Episode 4 Backwarder, which I'm placing a week or two before Heroes Day.

**Monday after school (3 Days after Heroes Day)**

The car pulls up to a gate and stops. "It looks like we're here." Adrien gets out of the car and helps Marinette out as well.

"Hi Ma-ma-marinette"

Marinette squeaked out a "Luka?"

Luka chuckled as her response, "So no one mentioned that I was showing up?"

A surprised Adrien spoke up, but he sounded a lot more collected than Marinette, "Hey Luka!  This is the first I'm hearing of this.  Does Kagami know?"

"Hm, maybe... I guess there's only one way to find out."  Luka turns around and presses the buzzer on the intercom.

Marinette waits for a robot eye thing to pop out of the wall, but instead she hears a woman's curious voice.  "Hello?  Who is it?"

Adrien presses the intercom to respond, "Hi Mrs. Tsurugi.  It's Adrien with a couple of friends, we're here to visit Kagami."

Without a response the gate opens up and they walk through it.  Marinette can finally see Kagami's house, er, that's not the right word... it's a bit smaller than Adrien's mansion, but it's still definitely a mansion.  They walked up some steps and as they reached the front door, it opened, revealing Kagami.  She gives a little nod upon seeing them, and closes the door once they're all through.  "Follow me."  Kagami quickly heads through an open door, leaving the others with no time to look other the presumably Japanese painting that are hung up in the foyer.  After quickly going through a hallway they find themselves in a room that almost looks like a dojo straight out of an anime, it's got the mat flooring, signs that say thing in Japanese, one of those wooden spinning training dummies.  All it's really missing is some sliding paper doors.  "Our house back in Japan has a better training hall, but this is big enough for the four of us."

Marinette has been impressed by what she's been quickly been able to see so far of the mansion.  Everything is clean and orderly, but it doesn't feel sterile like Adrien's does.  ' _Why is she so much colder than the house feels?  What was that comment about having a bigger room in the other house?  Was she purposefully humblebraging, or does she not realize how much more she has than everyone else?_ '

Meanwhile Adrien is practically bouncing with excitement, "Hey Marinette, why don't we do a quick stretch and then spar?"

Marinette squeaks, "Sure!" ' _Stretch?  I hope I don't embarrass myself._ ' 

Kagami sees Luka sitting against the wall, unpacking his guitar, and she sits down next to him.  She looks up and watches Marinette and Adrien stretch with confusion.  She whispers to Luka, "It looks like she doesn't know how to stretch properly, and she's just copying Adrien."

"Yeah, but she's copying him really well, she must be naturally flexible.  So Kagami, do you still want to go through with our plan?"

Kagami sighs, "Yeah, but I'm not sure if Adrien will take the bait.  How far should we push it?"

"Let's keep it light today and escalate it more each time.  He might not take the bait today, as he seems like the type of guy that it'll take a while to figure things out."

"He knows how to fight, and he doesn't strike me as a coward, but a couple of weeks ago there was an akuma alert and he ran and hid in the bathroom until the akuma was defeated, and the akuma wasn't anywhere near us.  That's caused me to have some doubts about him, but I still like him.  I'm actually a bit worried that we'll push things too far, and he won't take the bait, causing both Marinette and myself to lose interest in him."

Luka strums a few confused notes on his guitar, "Why are you worried about losing interest in him?"

"He's a good guy, someone should love him for who he really is, not just his name and money.  I don't know if Adrien can even tell the difference between authentic and fake love."

"Ah, that explains why your heart always sounds like this."  Luka plays a sorrowful tune.

Kagami opened her mouth to rebuke the sound of her heart, but instead she said nothing and closed her mouth.

Adrien's voice ended their conversation, "Marinette, are you all stretched out and ready to spar?"

"YUP!  S-sure am!"

Adrien got into a fighting stance and frowned at Marinette holding her arms up but otherwise just standing normally.  "Um, Marinette, you should spread your feet apart like this."  Marinette complies, but it still looks all wrong.  "Here, let me help you."  Adrien takes a couple steps forward.  "Ok, feet should be straight under your shoulders."

Marinette looks into his eyes and starts blushing with his face so close to hers.  She moves her legs as directed, "L-like this?"

"Yup, ok now rotate you leg so your toes are facing out... no other leg... ok now your body is all twisted."  Adrien puts his hands on her shoulders to untwist her body, but Marinette tenses up even more.  "Just relax it a little and turn this way... perfect."  Adrien takes a couple steps back and gets into position.  "Ok, you ready?"

"Be as I'll ever"

Luka starts strumming his guitar, building the anticipation.

"I'll take that as a yes."  Adrien decides to start off slow and strikes at her arm.  Marinette turns and steps out of the way surprisingly fast.  Adrien tries to hit her arm a couple more times and both times she steps out of the way again.  "You know Marinette, you can't win a fight just by dodging."

"You know Adrien, I think that's exactly how Ladybug beat Anansi."

"Ok, fair, so is your strategy to get me to destroy the building and have it fall on me?"

In a teasing voice, "Hm, maybe you're right, I'm not sure if you're strong enough to destroy the building."

"Don't be afraid to touch me."

Marinette giggles, blushes, and quietly says "Touch you".

Adrien smirks at her response ' _I can't believe how blind I was about her feelings for me._ '  "What did you say?"

"Yeah, I'm going to touch you."  Marinette aims a strike at Adrien, but he knocks her hand away.

Kagami watches as Luka switches to a faster melody, playing different notes when Marinette attacks, she blocks, Adrien attacks, and when he blocks.  Kagami isn't sure, but Luka might even be playing to their footsteps.

' _Ok, time to take it up a notch._ '  Adrien aims to hit her side, but Marinette knocks his hand away.  They start to move faster now, each taking turns trying to land a hit or two, but they're all dodges or blocked on both sides.  All of the while Luka plays faster and faster.

Kagami is no longer sure if Luka is playing as a reaction to their movements, or if he's conducting their fight.  "If we recorded this, it might turn into a new dance routine."

Luka chuckled, but didn't let that phase his playing.

' _How is she so good at reading me?  No more holding back._ '  Adrien strikes at Marinette again, but this time Marinette steps to the side and in towards Adrien.  She strikes his stomach, grabs his arm, slides her foot under him, and lowers herself while flipping him over herself.  Adrien lands on his back.  "Oof!"  ' _How did that happen again?  I'm a superhero and she didn't surprise attack me this time._ '

Luka gives one last strum of his guitar, and then stops the sound.

Adrien moans.

Marinette squeaks, "Sorry!  Here, let me help you up."

Adrien moans in response.

Kagami gets up and starts stretching.

Adrien moans again, still on the ground.  "I think I'm dying Mari, you killed me.  Tell my bodyguard that I leave him the car..."  Adrien exhales as he closes his eyes, and his head rolls to the side.

Marinette is pretty sure he was joking, but the longer he stays still, the less it seems like a joke.  "Adrien?"

Kagami walks over and kicks his leg, "Move, it's my turn and you're in my way."

"I can't move, I'm dead."  Suddenly his legs are lifted into the air and he's dragged out of the way.  "Hey, show some respect for the dead."

"I show respect to those that earn it."

Adrien dramatically puts his hand over his heart, "Ouch!  You wound me."

Marinette looked at Adrien, ' _Why does that sound familiar?_ '

Luka looks into Marinette's eyes, "Marinette, that was amazing.  Is there anything you can't do?"

Marinette blushes, "Amazing?  Really?"

"Yes really.  It was almost as amazing as the time you picked the lock, escaped, and got word to Ladybug that we were chained up inside my moms boat."

Marinette giggles.

Kagami would look perplexed, if she wasn't so good at hiding her emotions, "Why were you chained up?"

"My mom was akumatized, and we didn't want to help her ruin the music festival."

"Oh, ok."

Luka nudges Adrien, "Kagami was saying that she should have recorded your match, maybe you should record hers."

Adrien sits up and starts recording.

Kagami gets into a fighting stance, "Are you ready Marinette?"

Marinette gets into the stance that Adrien showed her, "Yeah."

Kagami holds her hand out, palm up, and motions for Marinette to come at her.

Marinette looks at Kagami, unsure how to properly start this match.

Using her normally cold voice and expression, "Don't hesitate."

Luka starts playing his guitar as Marinette steps forward and strikes at Kagami, but she's deflected.

Kagami strikes back and hits Marinette, "Predictable."

Marinette and Kagami start to trade striking at each other and blocking.  Circling around each other like a dance, a dance that Marinette is losing.  Marinette managed to hit Kagami a couple of times, but in return she was hit several times, each one leaving a slightly smug "Predictable" ringing in her ears.  After a couple of minutes Kagami pauses and the music calms down.  "Marinette, why are you holding back?"

"I'm not!"

"You were doing a lot better against Adrien."

"He's easier to read."

Kagami looked confused, "Part of the reason he's one of the better fencers in Paris is because he's a bit hard to read.  Have you ever fought him before?"

"Just that one time at the fencing tryouts, but I have sat behind him in class all year, so maybe I picked up a few things."

Still sounding unsure, "That doesn't sound right, but it doesn't matter."  Kagami lowered her  voice so only Marinette could hear, "Do you know why I invited you here today?"

"Wasn't it to spar?"

"It'd be more correct to say that it was so we could spar in front of Adrien..." Kagami stepped aside so Marinette was looking directly at Adrien, "and so that I could win so badly that you'd be completely humiliated in front of him... but it will only really be fun if your fighting at your best.  Starting tonight, he'll know that you're not worthy of his time."

Marinette's eyes widened, ' _Did she just say that?_ '

Kagami struck Marinette's arm, starting the next round of attacks, and Luka speeds up the guitar to match.  Throughout the exchange, several smug "Predictable"s  were exclaimed.  Speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, "You know Marinette, it's clear you're losing, so feel free to quit at any time."

' _Who does she think she is?_ '  Keeping her voice low but venomous, "If anyone isn't worthy of his time, it's you.  Adrien deserves someone that can show him lots of love, but you're too busy keeping your image of superiority to show any emotions, let alone love."

In Kagami's surprise to the timid Marinette's response, she faltered for only a mere moment, but that moment was long enough for Marinette to land a couple blows.  "So you're finally not holding back?"

They continue to circle around each other trading attacks, blocks, and dodges, but it is clear that Marinette is getting tired and only continuing due to her own stubbornness.  Luka stops playing his guitar, as his concern grows that this match isn't going to end well.  As they continue to circle each other, Marinette's eyes connect with Adrien's.  ' _Why does he look so worried?_ '  Marinette stumbles, and Kagami takes the opportunity to kick Marinette, but Marinette reacts quickly and catches Kagami's leg.  She pulls the leg as she spins, taking Kagami off of the ground.

"Ahhhhhh!"  Kagami's body is spun about 270 degrees around Marinette before her leg is release, and Kagami is flying through the air.  Kagami twists body so she can land into a roll, and she braces her head with her arms.  The air is knocked out of her as she lands, and after she stops rolling she stops moving.

People are saying stuff, but Kagami doesn't understand.  As she opens her eyes, she sees Marinette's hand reaching down to her, so she slaps it away to defend herself.  Her head is still spinning a little bit, but she sits up and notices everyone is looking at her concern in their eyes.  Adrien holds his hand out, and Kagami takes it, and is pulled back onto her feet.

"I'm so sorry Kagami, I didn't mean to do that."  Marinette's eyes are watering up.

Kagami blinks as she's still trying to orientate herself.  "It's ok, I was just surprised.  Sorry I slapped your hand, I thought you were still attacking."

"Oh, don't worry about that."

Luka was looking around the room, "Is this how sparring sessions always end up?  If Marinette had spun you a bit more, you would have probably been thrown into the wall."

Kagami looked around the room, and realized how far she was actually thrown.  "How did you throw me so far?"

Adrien smiled, "Yeah, that was really impressive."

Marinette looked embarrassed and started flailing her arms as she talked, "Well, um, you know, I have to carry the bakery to, um, put in the bags of flour, and, um, it's really heavy.  Yeah, that must be it.  What I mean is, when I help out in the bakery, I sometimes have to lift things heavier than Kagami, so I guess I don't know my own strength?"

Clapping is heard from the other side of the room, and the group turns to she a middle-aged woman, with dark hair like Kagami's, and wearing dark sunglasses.  "That was very impressive young lady.  It's not very often that someone beats my daughter, let only someone that fights like a wild animal.  Tell me, have you managed to win any competitions?"

"Um, no?"

"That's what I expected.  You need more discipline, maybe you and Kagami can practice together more often, she can teach you discipline, and she could use more experience against strong wild animals such as yourself.  Young lady, what's your name?"

"Um, Ma-Marinette!"

"It's settled Miss Marinette, practice with Kagami and you'll be a champion in no time.  Adrien, are you here?"

"Yes Mrs. Tsurugi."

"Is you're father feeling better now that he's home?"

"Yes he is."

"That's good to hear.  Please send him my regards.  Why don't all of you take a break and have some tea."

"Yes Mother."

Mrs. Tsurugi leaves, and Marinette, Adrien, and Luka all relax their shoulders.

"Forgive my mother's behavior, she's usually not so gushing like that."

Marinette's mouth drops open.  "What do you mean gushing?"

"The way she kept complimenting you."

"She was insulting me!"

"Just because it's an insult, it doesn't mean it's also a compliment."

"Um, that's exactly what it means."

Luka interrupts the argument, "I think what Kagami is getting at is that it was like a reverse back-handed compliment."

Marinette looks at Luka in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"A back-handed compliment is when someone says something that sounds nice, but it's actually an insult.  On the other hand, what Kagami's mom said sounded like an insult, but was actually a compliment."

"Hm, maybe.  Kagami, what did you mom mean by calling me a 'wild animal' then?"

"She means that your movements are unrefined and you fight mostly on instinct and reactions instead of planning."

' _I guess it seems that way since I wasn't trying to de-akumatize her._ '  "If that's the case, why does she want us to practice together?  Wouldn't someone more disciplined be better?"

"No, because you throwing me like that was completely unexpected, and depending on the type of competition, it wouldn't be allowed."

"If it might not be allowed, then why?"

"That's exactly why, because people don't always follow the rules... that's how Mother lost her eyesight."

"Oh"

After a minute Kagami continued.  "At the end of her last championship, it was declared that Mother won.  She and her opponent put their swords down, Mother took off her helmet and bowed to show respect, but the loser lifted his sword up and slashed across both of her eyes, blinding her.  My Mother must think that practicing with you will help prepare me to face such people."

Marinette's eyes water up, "That's terrible, but I'm not sure how much I can help, you've already seen all of my moves.  I'm sorry I threw you like that, I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened.  It might be a bad habit of mine."

Adrien chuckled, "Mari, your arm is almost as good as Ladybug's.  Kagami, maybe you should talk to Chat Noir about starting a support group, Paw-jectiles Anonymous."

Marinette giggled, "Kitty will love that one.  So someone said something about tea?"

Kagami leads the group to the tea room.  Shows the boys to their seats.  "Marinette, would you help me get the tea?"

"S-sure?"

They both walk over to where the tea tray is, and Kagami turns on the water heater.  "Hey Marinette, about what I said earlier.  I didn't entirely mean it, I was mostly trying to rile you up, so you'd stop holding back."

"Oh, well, I did mean what I said, Adrien deserves lots of love.  I've only met his father a couple of times, but I can tell he's very icy, and he also seems to make Adrien sad a lot.  But, I don't want to be enemies and fight with you over Adrien."

"Yesterday, I learned that Adrien brought you to the ice rink, because he was nervous to go with me by himself.  I thought you crashed it to taunt us or something.  I thought you were the girl he was trying to get over, which was confusing, because it seemed that you like Adrien, but it now seems he was trying to get over Ladybug this whole time, not you.  I think it's very admirable that you tried to help Adrien out on a date with another girl, and yesterday I was thinking of helping you have a chance the same way that you helped me, but then I remembered something."

Marinette gulped, "What did you remember?"

Kagami looked into Marinette's eyes with an even more icy stare than normally, "That when we went to the royal wedding, you gave him a prescription and he spent too much time looking for a pharmacy for you."

Marinette groaned, "I still can't believe I gave him that.  It's so embarrassing."

"Then why'd you give it to him."

Marinette's tone was sad, "I meant to give him something else.  My mix up was so bad that I even caused an Akuma."

"What did you mean to give him?"

Marinette looked away, "A love letter."

"So you wait until I'm about to spend a weekend with him before you try and confess your feelings?"

"Well, no, I didn't wait until that weekend.  I've had over a dozen failed attempts at confessing to him, that was just the latest attempt at the time."

"Why don't you just go over and tell him?"

"I've tried, but my heart beats too hard, and my mouth and body stop working correctly."

"Maybe if you can't function around Adrien, then you should change your target.  I'm pretty sure Luka is into you."

"Yeah, I like Luka, but he's no Adrien.  It wouldn't be fair to Luka to lead him on like that.  I already feel bad enough bringing him to our double date, or whatever that was."

"Marinette, I don't want to fight dirty against you to win over Adrien.  If we both fight cleanly, then hopefully we'll both be in his life after he decides, and he won't lose out on either of us.  That's the real reason I invited the three of you over today.  Both of us spending time with Adrien, so hopefully he'll get over Ladybug and choose one of us.  While we're doing that, Luka is here to try and win you over, and he's doing it right in front of Adrien.  If Adrien does have romantic feelings for you, and he's just too dumb to realize it, then maybe Luka can make Adrien jealous, and he can figure things out.  If Adrien doesn't get jealous, then he probably isn't interested in you."

"Oh, well, what happens if Adrien chooses me?"

"Then Adrien will finally be over Ladybug, and then after a few dates he'll realize that I'm the right choice and switch to me."

Marinette rolled her eyes, "Well, at least you're not overly annoying about your self-confidence like Chloe is."

"You really hate that girl don't you?"

Marinette pouted, "I've had to deal with her for too long."

"So are we in agreement to fight over Adrien in a fair manner?"

Marinette holds out her hand and shakes Kagami's, "You have a deal."

The girls pick up the assorted tea, tea cups, and hot water to bring over to the table, and realize that the boys have been watching them.  Marinette stumbles, sending the bags of tea flying everywhere.  Marinette groans, "At least it was the tea bags and not the macarons."  She takes out the box of macarons and places them on the table and everyone gathers the tea bags.

Once everything is cleaned up, Luka takes a macaron and pops it in his mouth.  "Wow, this is really good."

Marinette blushed, "T-Thank you!  Only the best for my friends."

"When you were getting the tea ready, I was telling Adrien how much I enjoy watching you.  You're cute and always so animated."

Marinette's blush deepened.

Adrien chuckled, "She's so animated because they spent most of the budget on animating Marinette."

"..."

"..."

"..."

Marinette whispers to Kagami, "Is it too late for us to change our minds?"

"I hope not."

 

* * *

 

 

After they finished their tea, and sparred some more, Adrien took Marinette and Luka home.  Adrien opened his front door, and found his father waiting at the top of the stairs.  "Hello Father."

"Hello Adrien.  How was sparring with the young miss Tsurugi?"

Adrien's eyes light up, "It went very well, Kagami is a tough opponent, but I expected that.  What was surprising was that my friend Marinette was able to beat me and Kagami, and she's only been practicing for a couple of months.  She's amazing at everything she does."

' _Friend?  Amazing?_ '  "Ah, you're talking about the winner of the derby hat competition, aren't you?"

"Yes Father."

"It's good that you have two 'amazing friends' to help push you to be better.  Why don't you go to your room and get ready for your Chinese lesson, that substitute will be returning today."

"Yes Father."  Adrien heads off to his room.

"Natalie."

"Yes sir?"

"Does Adrien have romantic designs for miss Marinette?"

"I know he admires her, though I don't believe even he knows to the extent of his feelings towards her."

"Hm.  Was she not the girl that had my book?"

"That's correct sir."

"Hm.  Even though she's not from a prestigious family, she does have potential to take over as lead designer someday.  She could be a good match for Adrien.  Having another suitor besides the young Tsurugi isn't a bad idea.  Though she might also be a problem for us if she can't control herself around Adrien.  She might have other bad habits besides stealing books.  Why don't you investigate her a bit and let me know what you find out."

"Yes sir."

 

* * *

 

 

**Monday night**

Ladybug and Chat Noir arrive on the balcony of Paris' favorite daughter, the one and only, Chloe Bourgeois.  Ladybug knocks on the glass door.

"Who is it?!  I'm pretty sure I haven't done anything to akumatize anyone today."  Chloe slides back the curtain, "LADYBUG!  Do you need my help with another akuma?!"

"No Chloe, we need your help with something else today."  Ladybug glances at Chat before continuing.  "Chat and I have been discussing one of the potential new recruits, and we're going to need your help getting her ready.  You see, the Dog Miraculous requires someone that is loyal.  The problem is that this person is actually too loyal and she doesn't think for herself enough, even though she's very smart.  The problem is that if we give her the Miraculous now, she'll probably just jump in the way to take hits, instead of thinking of better actions that would keep everyone safe."

A very confused Chloe responds, "Soooo, what does this have to do with me?"

Chat speaks up, "You see, the person we're talking about is your friend, Sabrina.  We think she can be a great partner for you, if you can get her head straight."

Sounding sad, "Oh"

"What's wrong Chloe?  I thought you'd be excited to have your best friend be a hero."

"No, it's that you're asking me to change her, make her less loyal to me.  If I do that, she'll probably leave me."

Chat puts is hand on Chloe's shoulder, "She won't leave you, if you treat her like a proper friend.  Doing so will also be a good example to the rest of Paris."

"I, I don't know how to be someone's friend."

"Why don't you start simple.  Next time you want to go shopping or eat out, have her choose a place that's not on your favorites list, and make sure it's in her price range.  It might be good to insist it's a new place."

Ladybug chimed in, "When you play music, sometimes use her playlist instead, but make sure she doesn't change it to only have your favorite songs.  Though, the first step should be telling her that you're trying to be a better friend to her, but don't tell her that she's being considered for a spot as one of the new heroes."

Chloe sighs, "My psychologist has been telling me that my relationship with Sabrina is unhealthy."

"She's been with you this long, I don't think being a better friend will scare her away.  If you need help thinking of more ideas, you can always our class rep, she's friends with everybody."

"Ug, Dupain-Cheng"

Chat frowns, "What do you have against her?"

"Ug, her stupid family is so perfect and cheerful, and she's always rubbing it in my face with her cheerfulness."

"I don't think she's trying to rub it in your face, and besides you should be nicer to her, one time when an akuma was after you, she convinced the akuma to leave you alone by going out on a date with him instead."

Chloe huffs, "She would date an akuma, she has bad taste in everything, except of course her stupid little crush on Adrikins."

Chat shakes his head, ' _Was I really the only one that didn't know about Marinette?_ '

Ladybug rolls her eyes, "Well, you know what your job is for now.  We're going to try and get the first couple of new recruits to test out their miraculous on Wednesday.  I'll touch base tomorrow to let you know the times, so everyone can meet them.  Okay Chat, we should head out.  We each still have a couple more people to meet tonight."


	8. Baby Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- Adrien and Marinette spar, and are a fairly even match, though Marinette comes out on top.  
> \- Kagami and Marinette spar, and Kagami is clearly winning, but Marinette wins in the end with a surprise throwing of Kagami across the room.  
> \- Kagami and Marinette agree to fight over Adrien's love fairly.  
> \- Gabriel ships is a shipping fiend, he already ships Adrien with Kagami, and now he's considering shipping him with Marinette, assuming she can pass Nathalie's background check.  
> \- Ladybug and Chat tell Chloe to be better friends with Sabrina, and to teach her to be more independent. If Chloe can do that, then Sabrina can get the Dog Miraculous.  
>   
> Now:  
> \- Just a normal day.  
> \- Normal events at school.  
> \- Babysteps.

**Tuesday morning (4 Days after Heroes Day)**

"Mar-i-nette!"

Groans.

"It's time to waaaaake up!"

Mumblings.

The bed is suddenly cold and bright as the sweet embrace of the blanket is torn away.  "You're going to be LATE!"

Marinette shoots up into a sitting position, "I'm late!"

Alya laughs, "Chill girl, you're not late… yet!"

Marinette rubs the sleep out of her eyes, "Alya, what are you doing here?"  Marinette climbs out of her bed.

"Last night you said you were too busy to tell me everything, so you'd tell me today, and guess what... it's today!"

Marinette whined, "I feel like it's still yesterday.  Why is school so early?"  Marinette starts getting dressed.

"Why do you always stay up so late?  Come on, spill."

"Ok, so, when we got to Kagami's house, Luka was waiting for us."

Sounding intrigued, Alya responded, "Oh, what was he doing there?"

"He came to play battle music, and it seems that him and Kagami are plotting together."

Alya smirked, "Intriguing."

"Well, I had a bit of a private chat with Kagami..."

Alya interrupted with concern, "Hey Marinette, why are your arms covered in bruises?"

"Oh, Kagami hits pretty hard.  So, as I was saying, I was talking with Kagami, and we agreed to try and win over Adrien fairly, no sabotaging each other, and no more attempting to deliver love letters right the other person is about to spend some time alone with Adrien."

"Are you ok?  Your arms must be really sore.  Did you at least get her back?"

Marinette smirked, "Eh, I'm so clumsy that I actually heal pretty fast now, I'll be tip top in a couple of days.  As for getting Kagami back, I did better than get her back."  Marinette pulled out her phone and started typing, "Kagami is a lot better than me, and she was winning, but in the end, I did this and ended the fight."  Marinette showed Alya footage and Ladybug and Chat Noir's first battle with Stoneheart, where Ladybug tossed Chat Noir at Stoneheart.

Alya's mouth dropped for a moment, "Y-you, are you saying you threw her?"

"Yeah, you should have heard her scream."

Alya started laughing, "I wish I could have seen and heard that."

Marinette grabs her bag, and heads downstairs.  She grabs a box and an apple, and starts eating the apple.

"Ok Marinette, so back to the story, you and Kagami agreed to fight fairly, but that doesn't explain what Luka was doing there."

"So, it looks like the four of us will be spending more time together.  Kagami is hoping that Adrien will get over his crush on Ladybug and choose one of us.  She said if he chooses me, she's confident that he'll get bored of me and choose Kagami in the end."

"Oooo she's underestimating you, that's how you'll win."

Marinette smiled in response.  "The thing with Luka is that he's trying to win me over right in front of Adrien.  They think Adrien won't react to Luka flirting at me, which will discourage me, and I'll fall into Luka's arms."

"This is all starting to sound complicated.  Are you ok with Luka flirting with you?  In front or Adrien or otherwise."

Marinette sighed, "Yeah, I guess."

"You can tell him your just not interested."

"It's not that.  I am a bit interested, but I don't think he'll be able to sway my feelings for Adrien.  I want to give Luka a chance, but I’m worried that I'll be leading him on, giving him false hope, or something."

"I see.  Maybe figure out a date, where you need to make a decision on what you need to tell Luka, or something like that."

"Yeah, I'll think about it."  The girls head downstairs, Marinette says bye to her parents, and heads to school.

"You know, how Adrien has been locked up his whole life?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm just thinking... he might not notice that Luka is flirting with you, because he might not even know what flirting is.  So, if he doesn't respond, it doesn't mean you need to give up on him."

"Oh god, you're totally right.  He's so proper, I can't even imagine him flirting."  Marinette proceeds to imagine Adrien acting like Chat Noir and flirting with her, and she stops in the middle of the street.

Alya pulls Marinette off the road, "By how red your face is, you are clearly imagining him flirting right now.  Though, if you flirted with him, it'd probably go right over his head."

Marinette gets even redder and squeaks, "Me, flirt? Adrien, with?"

They reach the school entrance, and wait for Nino and Adrien to arrive.  "So… Marinette?"

"Yeah?"

"What's in the box."

"Passion fruit macarons."

Alya looks suspiciously at Marinette, "Why Passion fruit?"

Marinette starts to fiddle, "Um, no reason.  Why are you asking?"

Alya smirks, "Hey Marinette, what's Adrien's favorite flavor?"

Marinette squeaked, "What?  Adrien?  Where?  Oh, no he's too nice choose a favorite flavor, because it'd make the other flavors feel left out, and if he did have a favorite flavor, it totally wouldn't be passion fruit."

Alya chuckled, "Girl, you have no reason to get flustered around me.  Why is this the first I'm hearing about this plan?  It's a pretty good move though, they say that whole thing about a man's heart being through his stomach."

"Exactly, and I have enough for the whole class so it won't be too obvious."

"Hey Dudettes!"

"Hey Nino!"

"Hey Nino."

A dreamy expression grows on Marinette’s face, and Alya and Nino know that Adrien’s car has pulled up without having to see it.

Nino chuckled, “Wow, you’re BFF is so obvious.”

Alya chuckled as well, “And your BBF is so oblivious.”

“Good morning Nino!”  Adrien and Nino do their handshake.

“Good morning Alya.  Good morning Marinette, what’s in the box?”

“Box?  Oh, this?  Eat classmates, share to bring.  I mean, classmates share eat!  I mean, ahh!”

“Adriekins!”  Chloe simultaneously grabbed onto Adrien’s arm and knocked Marinette out of the way, sending the box into the air and the macarons tumbling out of it.

Adrien caught the box and handed it to Marinette.  Sounding annoyed, “Chloe, you know it’s possible to talk to me without knocking people over.”

“It’s only Marinette, she would have dropped it anyway, so no harm.”

‘ _Baby steps, baby steps._ ’  Marinette took a deep breath to calm down. And then she opened the box, to see one macaron remaining.  “Thanks for saving this Adrien.”  She holds out the box for Adrien to see the macaron, “Do you want this?  I brought them to share with the class, um, since you rescued it, you earned first dibs.”

Adrien takes the macaron, “Thanks.”

Chloe scoffs, “You don’t want to eat that Adrien, it’s from that disgusting bakery.”

Adrien pops it into his mouth, and groans with pleasure.  “It’s amazing Marinette, passionfruit is my favorite.”

“Hehe, what a coincidence.  I didn’t know you had a favorite, though sometimes people do, so it would make sense for you to maybe have a favorite too.  It liked you glad, hehe.”

Adrien was about to respond, but he was suddenly being pulled away from the group.  “Adriekins, we have so much to talk about…”

Adrien waved at his friends and gave an apologetic smile as he disappeared into the school.

Alya smiled at Marinette, “You go girl, mission accomplished.”

“Can you believe it?  He looked so happy!”

“Yeah, and if we plan better next time, it’ll be harder for Chloe to interfere.”

Marinette sighs, “Baby steps.”

 

* * *

 

 

After Ms. Bustier performed the rollcall at the start of homeroom, it was time for the morning exercise of complimenting classmates.  Ms. Bustier calls up Marinette and Chloe, and the class grows quiet as tension fills the room.  “Marinette, you go first.”

“Ok Ms. Bustier.  Um, Chloe I appreciate that you’ve been working on being a better person.”

“Well, Marinette, I appreciate that you bathed somewhat recently.”

Marinette’s eye twitched in annoyance, ‘ _Baby steps, baby steps._ ’

 

* * *

 

 

Meanwhile in a dark layer a window opens up.  “Ah, the frustration of always having to take the higher road, just to show your tormentor how to be a better person.”  Hawkmoth holds a butterfly between his hands, “Fly away my little akuma, and evilize her.”

 

* * *

 

 

Marinette sits back at her desk, and glares at Chloe.  No one sees the dark butterfly enter the room.

Alya uses her elbow to nudge Marinette and whispers to her, “Are you ok?”

Marinette sighs, “Yeah, baby steps.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Arg, her negative emotions have subsided.  Stay nearby my little akuma, knowing Ms. Bourgeois it won’t be long.”

 

* * *

 

 

A note lands in front of Marinette.  After glancing at it she scowls at Chloe. ‘ _Baby steps, baby steps_.’

 

* * *

 

 

“This is taking too long.  Is Ms. Bourgeois losing her edge?”

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps._ ’

 

* * *

 

 

“Sir, have you been here all morning?  It’s almost time for lunch.  Have you gotten any work accomplished today?”

“That girl that avoided being akumatized that day with Zombiezou…”

“You mean Ms. Marinette, the girl that Adrien is probably infatuated with.”

“Yes her, the only one left in his class that hasn’t been akumatized, and with her negative emotions simmering all morning like a fine stew, she might end up being the strongest akuma yet.  Hm…”

Natalie quirks her eyebrow, “Yes?”

“All of this talk has reminded me of something.  I think it’s time to finally try out that Marinette soup that Kung Food made.”

“Very well.”

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps._ ’

 

* * *

 

 

During her break, Marinette eats her lunch in front of her computer.  “Ah, Radiant, Carefree, Dreamy, Adrien, the Fragrance.  Tikki… how is Adrien so perfect?”

Tikki giggles, “I don’t know, but you should hurry and finish your lunch.  You need to head back to school soon.”

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps._ ’

 

* * *

 

 

“Sir, how was the soup?”

“It was rather exquisite.”

“Is Ms. Marinette any closer to becoming akumatized?”

“No, she’s been teetering on the edge all day, but she’s stubborn. The depths of her negative emotions are still growing, so she’ll just be an even more powerful akuma.”

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps._ ’

 

* * *

 

 

“Sir, I’ve closed the curtains in your office, why don’t you get some work done while we wait?”

“Very well.”

 

* * *

 

 

Alya and Marinette leave the school, “Wow Marinette, I’ve never seen her that bad, and it was all directed at you.  Are you good?”

Marinette sighs, “Yeah.  I’m pretty beat.  I’m going to take a nap.”  Marinette straightens up as she feels an odd chill.  She keeps her head straight, but her eyes start darting around.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t be obvious, but I feel like someone is watching me.”

Alya positions herself to look behind Marinette and tries to subtly look around.  “I don’t see anyone looking this way.”

“Hm, maybe I’m just imagining things.  Time for my nap… call me after dinner to go over our math homework, ok?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.  Take care.”

“Bye Alya.”

 

* * *

 

 

Adrien closes the door to his bedroom and Plagg zips out of his shirt.  “Hey Plagg, hurry up and have some cheese.”

Plagg looks at Adrien suspiciously as he eats his cheese.  “Kid, what are you planning on doing?”

Adrien plugs his phone into the speaker, and starts a recorded piano piece that he’s been practicing, “Chloe was pretty harsh on Marinette all day, I just want to check up on her.”

“Hm, pigtails has been dealing with Chloe the whole year without being akumatized…” Plagg puts his paw on his chin, looking thoughtful for a few moments, “but it wouldn’t hurt to pay her a visit, it’s for the best to make sure she’s ok... just make sure to bring me back a cheese danish.”

“Sure thing.  Plagg claws out!”  Chat Noir opens the window and hops out of his bedroom.  After a minute he reaches the roof above the bakery, and sees Marinette leaning against her balcony railing.

Marinette spat out, “I don’t care why she’s upset!  She’ll be in for a rude awakening if she thinks she can be a hero when she takes all of her problems out on other people.”

“Hey Purrincess, who are you talking to?”

Marinette spins around, seeing Chat perched on her roof.  “Ch-Chat, I’m just talking to myself, no one else here except me, and you now of course.  What are you doing here?”

“I just came to visit my purrincess.”  Chat hops down and leans against the railing.  “So, what’s wrong?”

Marinette sighs, “Chat, I felt like someone was watching me a little while ago, let’s move out of view and over to the seat.”  She takes his hand and lead him to the seat.

“Is that’s what’s bothering you?”

Marinette waves the idea off with her hand, “No, that’s the least of my problems.  Just something to be aware of.”  She takes a moment to gather her thoughts and put them into words.  When she finally speaks, her voice is filled with disgust, “It’s just Chloe being Chloe.”   Tears start to swell in her eyes, “I can’t think of anything that I’ve done to upset her, but she spent the whole day tormenting me.”  As she speaks the anger in her voice grows, “It’s like she wants to akumatize me, but I won’t let her.  She pushed me to my limit today, a little more and I would have has no choice but to make sure her daddikins wouldn’t be able to afford to fix her face, so that I could get rid of my negative emotions.”  Marinette sighs, “If I didn’t secretly have the ability to affect her status as a superhero, I would have probably snapped before lunch.  I’m definitely writing this up to Ladybug.”

Chat noticed that both of Marinette’s hands were clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms, and puts his hand on her shoulder.  “I’m so sorry that that you’ve gone through that.  I think it’s mine and Ladybug’s fault that Chloe has been lashing out at you.”

Marinette wipes away her tears, “What do you mean?”

“Last night, Ladybug and I had a talk with her.  We, um, told her that she needs to be a better role model, and as part of that, we suggested that she should have you help her be a better friend to Sabrina.”

“Yeah, Ladybug asked me if I was willing to help with that.  But what does that have to do with why Chloe was attacking me all day?”

“Well, Chloe idolizes Ladybug, and basically, Chloe probably interrupted things like, Chloe should be more like you, or that Ladybug likes you more than Chloe.  Chloe acts like she’s strong with a lot of confidence, but I think a lot of that is an act.  She’s not like you, she doesn’t have real confidence…”

‘ _I have real confidence?_   _How did he get that idea?_ ’

“You also seem to be happy all of the time, and that you have a lot of friends.  Chloe is probably jealous of you and feels a bit inferior to you.”

Marinette scoffs, “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m being serious.  I’ve looked into her a bit.  Even though she’s rich, her family life isn’t really great.”

“Yeah, I know her mom is a piece of work.”

“It’s not just her mom.  The mayor just buys stuff for her, and does things to appease her, but that’s not really the love she needs.  I think her butler has spent more time raising her than her own parents.”

Marinette sighs, “I guess I can be a little more patient with her.  Maybe I should ask Ladybug to use her yo-yo and hang Chloe upside down from the Eiffel tower for a little while.  Having a few pictures of that will make me feel better, and maybe Chloe will get the message.”  Marinette ends the sentence with a devilish smirk that sends a chill down Chat’s spine.

Neither of them notices a black butterfly fluttering away.

 

* * *

 

 

“Gah, the negative emotions are gone.  My whole day has been wasted.  Akuma, go and find someone with negative emotions, I don’t care who.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Thanks for visiting me today, I really needed it.”  Marinette strangles Chat with the tightest hug she can give him, and Chat returns the hug.

“I’m glad I could help purrincess.  Is there anything else I help you with today?”

Marinette breaks the hug and looks into his eyes, smiling.  “Thanks Kitty, but you’ve fixed things already.  Is there anything I can help you with?  Oh, here, have some cookies.”  Marinette opens her purse and hands a couple cookies to Chat.

Chat’s eyes sparkle at the cookies, and starts munching on them.  “No, nothing in purrticular.  I just wanted to pay a visit to my favorite civilian.  But, since you brought up Ladybug, I was curious about how Ladybug knows you so well, and has so much faith in you.”

Marinette’s hands start to fidget, so she hides them behind her back.  “Well, we’re not really that close, she insists on always being professional, but I guess I know her better than most civilians.  Um, well, you see, early on, I heard a noise on my roof, so I came out onto the balcony to investigate it.  I called out, and there was a voice behind my chimney, asking for some cookies.  I starting to climb onto the roof…”

Chat inhaled sharply, ‘ _My clumsy princess climbing on a roof, that’s so reckless._ ’

“… and the voice yelled out, ‘Wait!’, so I stopped.  She said that I couldn’t see who she was, and that she just needed a cookie.  I told her to wait, and ran into the bakery to get a cookie, and brought it back to her.  She explained that her magic was powered by cookies, and she was planning on going to the store to buy more cookies, but an akuma attack happened first.  I offered to teach her how to bake cookies, and once she was recharged, she came out of hiding, and I gave her first lesson in baking.  It was pretty surreal giving a superhero a baking lesson.  She came back a couple other times to learn how to bake other things, but it seems her little floating miraculous creature prefers cookies.”

“That little creature is called a kwami.”

“Ah yes, kwami.  Well, I was able to meet her kwami during the baking lessons, so I could teach Ladybug how to make treats that her kwami, um, Tikki, would prefer.  I’ve always kept cookies in my purse, so I’d always have a snack when I want one, but ever since I met Ladybug, sometimes when I’m walking around the city, I’ll realize that some cookies are missing, and because of that I know that I crossed paths with Ladybug, or at least her Kwami.  It’s a bit reassuring to know that a superhero is close by.”  Marinette nudges Chat with her elbow and smiles at him.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from you purincess, you’re friends with everyone.  So, you wouldn’t happen to be able to give me lessons on making cheese?”

Marinette giggles, “No, silly kitty.  I live in a bakery, not a, um, cheese factory?  Why?  Does your kwami like cheese?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Well, we were just talking about making food for Ladybug’s kwami, but also cheese is made from controlled decay, so it makes sense that that it’s a good fit for the little god of destruction.  I wonder what Rena Rouge’s kwami likes to eat.  What food is like an illusion?”

‘ _Wow, she’s so smart._ ’ “Hm, maybe those sour candies?  Because you’d think they’d be sweet, but they’re not.”

“Oh, that makes sense.  How’d you get to be such a smart kitty?”  Marinette starts scratching behind his cat ears, before she pulls away.  “Oh, sorry, that was rude of me.  I was treating you like a cat instead of a person.”

“It’s ok purrincess, I really enjoyed it.  Feline free to do that again whenever you want.”  Screams ring out in the distance.  “I guess that’s my cue to go.  You should get inside and stay safe.”

“Will do, and take care Kitty.”

After Chat vaults away, Tikki comes out of hiding.  “Wow, Chat was really caring today, wasn’t he.”

“Yeah, he really helped me feel better.  Ok Tikki, you know what time it is… Tikki, Spot On!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to fit the whole day in one chapter, but I think I want to keep the chapters around 3000 words, and I was already close to 6000, so I split the day in half. The next chapter should be out in a couple days (as opposed to my usual of a couple weeks).


	9. Apathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- Chloe brought Marinette to the brink of Akumatization  
> \- Chat paid his princess a visit to help her feel better
> 
> Now:  
> \- Akuma fight  
> \- Homework review

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really though it'd be a couple of days because it was mostly written, instead of 3 weeks. I think my office needs a new policy, whereas people need to finish up all their work that's related to my work before they can quit (or wait until the deadline is over).
> 
> I know what I want for next chapter, but I haven't started writing it yet. Someday I'd like to be a couple of chapters ahead.

**Tuesday afternoon (4 Days after Heroes Day)**

 

Ladybug lands next to Chat Noir on a rooftop overlooking the Pont des Arts.  “Have you learned anything yet?”

“Not much yet my lady.  I’ve only seen the one victim, and he seems a bit grey.”

She notices that in the middle of the bridge, there is someone large on his knees being shaken by a woman.  “Ivan?”  Sure enough, Ivan is a rather muted grey, as if the colors have been drained from him.  Ladybug swings down to the bridge and Chat follows her.

Tears are falling down Mylene’s face, as she pulls Ivan’s arm over her shoulder, and tries to lift him to his feet.  Her voice cracking from crying, “Come on Ivan, stand up.  We have to get away from the Akuma.”

Void of emotion, Ivan responded, “There’s no point.”

Ladybug looks down at the struggling Mylene, “Hey Mylene, what happened here?”

Mylene looks up at Ladybug, tears streaking her face, “The akuma was yelling something and then pointed her rose at me, and a beam shot out.  Ivan protected me, and the akuma took all of his color.  Now he doesn’t care about anything anymore.”

“Hang in there you two, Chat Noir and I will fix everything.”

From across the bridge, someone shrieks, “LADYBUG!!! CHAT NOIR!!!  I AM APATHY!!! AND YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR MIRACULOUS!!!”  Apathy looks like she’s been tie-died from head to toe.  The swirls of color seamlessly transition between her hair, skin, blouse, skirt, and high heels.

Ladybug starts spinning her yo-yo, “I think someone is upset that she forgot to separate her colors before putting them in the wash.”

Chat leans on his staff, “Hey Picasso, I’ve got four ears, can you chill out with the shrieking?”

“I SAID MY NAME IS APATHY!!!  CHAT NOIR!!! YOU’RE JUST AS USELESS AS ALL OF THE OTHER MEN IN THIS WORLD!!!”

Sounding angry, Ladybug yells back, “Hey, my kitty may be many things, but useless isn’t one of them?”

“Thanks bugaboo, I think.”  ‘ _What does she mean by many things?_ ’

“What happened?  Why were you Akumatized?”

“ANOTHER USELESS MAN STOOD ME UP!!!  I LEFT WORK EARLY TO LOOK NICE AND MAKE IT ON TIME, AND NOTHING!!! NO MAN!!! NO CALL!!! NO EMAIL!!!  MEN SHOW ME NOTHING BUT APATHY, SO NOW APATHY WILL PERMEATE THEIR ENTIRE EXISTENCE.”

Chat frowns, “Listen Lady, I’ve been stood up before, it’s a bummer, but it’s nothing to get Akumatized over.”

Ladybug rolls her eyes, ‘ _Seriously, he’s bringing this up again?_ ’

Apathy holds up her a purple rose in her hand and points it at Chat, “SHUTUP SIDEKICK!  NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU.”  A beam of light shoots out of the rose and hurdles towards Chat, but he rolls out of the way with plenty of time to spare.

“Hey Kitty, it looks like the akuma is in the rose.”

Chat smirks, “Spot on as usual my lady.”

 

“Behind You!”  Screams out Alya from behind the akuma, with Nino next to her.

Ladybug and Chat Noir start to turn, seeing a hoard of women creeping up behind them.  Ladybug jumps off the bridge, hooking her yo-yo to a lamppost on the bridge, and she swings to the bank of the Seine.  Chat extends his staff to lift him to the other side of the bridge, but before he makes it too far, the hoard of women pull the staff away, causing him to fall back down, without having made much distance.

Apathy points her rose at Alya and shrieks, “HOW DARE YOU INTERFERE!!!  GET THE MIRACULOUS AND YOU WILL ACHIEVE YOUR AMBITIONS.” A beam of light shoots out and hits Alya.  Apathy loses some of her color, and Alya becomes more vibrant.

Alya starts to cackle, “I will get their miraculous and blog their identities.  All will know the name Alya Cesaire, world famous reporter.  Trixx, let’s…”

With a strong pull on the Fox miraculous, the clasp comes undone, and Nino is suddenly running away with the miraculous in his hand.

“That’s mine, give it back.”  Alya yells as she turns and runs after Nino.

‘ _Thanks Nino._ ’  Ladybug hops onto the road behind Apathy.

Apathy fires a beam and hits Chat Noir, whose dark black outfit becomes a muted grey.  “CHAT NOIR!!! GIVE ME YOUR MIRACULOUS!!!”

Chat groans, “What’s the point?”

“UG! MEN ARE USELESS!!!”

Ladybug’s yo-yo wraps around Apathy’s arm, and pulls it in ladybug’s direction, unfortunately it’s the arm holding the rose, which is now pointing at Ladybug.  Apathy fires a beam at Ladybug, and she dodges, but Apathy pulls on the yo-yo wrapped around her arm, pulling Ladybug off balance and onto the ground.  Ladybug pulls back on the yo-yo, causing Apathy to lose balance as well.

“LADIES, GET LADYBUG AND ALL YOUR AMBITIONS WILL COME TRUE!!!”

The hoard of women get off Chat Noir, and rush towards Ladybug.  Ladybug retracts her yo-yo from Apathy’s arm.  “Mylene, get Chat Noir out of here.”

Mylene looks out from where she was hiding behind Ivan, “I’m sorry, I-I can’t.”

While Ladybug dodges the hoard of women, Apathy runs over to Chat Noir.  “PATHETIC MAN.”

Chat Noir is still laying on the ground, and takes no action to stop Apathy as she reaches for his ring.

Apathy stops and turns around at the sound of approaching rollerblades, but she’s too slow, and she screams out as she’s pushed into the railing of the bridge, causing her to drop the rose as she tumbles over the bridge.  Alix stops and picks up the rose, “Thanks Akumalady, but roses aren’t really my style.”

Ladybug swings back onto the bridge, still being chased by the hoard of women.

Alix holds out the rose towards Ladybug, “Hey Ladybug, would you like a rose?”

She takes the rose out of Alix’s hand, “That’s sweet of you Alix, but sadly my heart belongs to another.”  Ladybug rips the rose, and the akuma comes out of it.  Ladybug captures, purifies, and releases the akuma.  Sounding concerned, “Hey Alix, where’s the akuma victim?”

“She’s taking a swim in the Seine.”

“What?”  Ladybug hooks her yo-yo around the fence of the bridge and dives into the water.  After a little bit, she comes up with a woman wearing a beige blouse and skirt.

“Wow, I didn’t even need to use my… Lucky Charm!”  A piece of paper falls into her hands, “A phone number?”  As the hoard continue to rush towards Ladybug, she dials the number into her yo-yo, but before calling it she throws the paper into the air, “Miraculous Ladybug!”  The ladybugs swarm the city, once again fixing everything.

 

Chat gets up while Alix and Ladybug share a “Pound It.”

“Hey Chat, can you help this woman, I have a phone call to make.”  Ladybug walks off to the side and start talking on the phone.

‘ _Who’s she calling as Ladybug?_ ’ “Ok.”  Chat walks over to the woman, and hands her the rose.  “Miss, what happened?”

The woman wipes away tears with her wet sleeve, “I left work early today, spent the time to look nice, on a Tuesday no less, and then I was stood up again.  No call, or anything.  What’s the point of even trying to date if they don’t even bother?”

Chat frowns, “I’m sorry to hear that.  I’ve been stood up before, so I understand the frustration.”

“You have??  But you’re a superhero.”

“Yeah, well…”

A man yelling interrupted Chat, “Joan, is that you!  I’m so sorry.  My phone died, and I forgot which Starbucks we were supposed to meet at.  There are so many in this arrondissement, I’ve been running into each of them looking for you, while at the last one got a phone call from Ladybug asking about you.  That’s how I found you.  Oh no, you’re completely soaked.  Here, let me help.”  The man takes his coat off and puts it over Joan’s shoulders, and holds out his hand.

Joan blushes and takes his hand to stand up, “Thanks Jason.  Were you really running into all of the Starbucks looking for me?  There are so many.”  Joan and Jason walk away holding hands, but then Joan looks over her shoulder at the heroes, “Oh, thanks for the help Chat Noir and Ladybug.”

Alix mutters to Chat, “Are those two going to be ok?  Her mood changed way too fast, and he seems unreliable.”

Sounding annoyed, Chat responded, “Not as unreliable as her akuma name.  She wasn’t apathetic at all, and she filled women with motivation.”

Ladybug walks over to Chat and Alix.  “Yeah, I don’t know why, but I feel kinda weird about the fact that Hawkmoth lied to us about her name, like, he’s somehow even less trustworthy than I previously thought.” Ladybug smiles, “Thanks for the help Alix.”  She then whispers into Alix’s ear, “See you tomorrow.”  Ladybug’s earrings beep, and she readies her yo-yo, “It’s time to bug out.”

Alix waves, "Bye Ladybug.  But seriously Chat Noir, do all akuma victims act so happy right after they've been de-akumatized?  Watching those two is really bothering me."

"Ladybug is good at bringing couples together.  I'm sure they'll be fine."

 

* * *

 

 

Adrien is sitting in his seat at the dining room table, and his dinner is served to him.

Nathalie enters the room, while looking at her tablet.  “I’m sorry Adrien, but your father won’t be able to join you for dinner this evening.”

Adrien sighs, “May I eat in my room, so I can get some work done?”

“Very well.”

Nathalie has a tray brought out for Adrien, and he brings his food to his room.  He sits down at his desk, and picks up his blue scarf.

Plagg hovers over beside Adrien, “Kid, what are you thinking?”

Adrien sighs, “I know Marinette hates liars, but I was really hoping she was lying to Chat about this scarf.  I thought it was proof that my father cared about me, it made the lonely dinners a little tolerable, but last night I found her name hidden in the stitching.”

“Well, now you proof that Pigtails loves you.”

Adrien sighs again, “Yeah, but she loves Adrien, not me.”

“Kid, you are Adrien.  I think you’re confused, why don’t you have some cheese?”  Plagg holds out some cheese.

Adrien waves the cheese away, “No thanks Plagg.  What I mean is that she loves the perfection that I have to pretend to be every day.  She hates liars, but most of what she knows about me is a lie.”

Plagg eats his cheese in a single gulp.  “I think you’re selling her too short, but if that’s what you’re worried about, why don’t you just be more real around her.”

“Won’t she notice the similarity with Chat?”

“No way, people are blind.  If she does mention it, just say you’re a big fan of his.”

Adrien smiles, “Thanks Plagg.”

 

* * *

 

After dinner, Marinette is back in her room, sitting at her desk, with Alya on the computer screen.

“Ok Marinette, let’s get back on track.  What did you get for question number 4?”

“2”

“Uh, I got -2.”

Marinette looks over her work, “I don’t get it, how’d you get -2?”

“I just did that trick thingy that was explained in class today.”

“What trick thingy?”

Alya smirks, “Was Adrien too distracting again?”

“No, Adrien had nothing to do with it.  Chloe was distracting me today.”

“Oh right.  How are you feeling?”

“Better, but now you’re distracting me.  I really need to get these questions right.”

“Ok, let’s add Nino to the call and see what he got.  Maybe together we can explain it to you.”  Alya starts typing and clicking on her computer.

Nino’s face appears on the screen next to Alya’s, “What’s up Dudettes?”

“Hey Babe, we were going over our math homework.  What did you get for number 4?”

“Um, let me see.  I got 0.”

Marinette’s head hits her desk, and she lets out a whine.  “That’s different than both our answers.  I’m totally going to fail math, get left back a year in school, and then I’ll never have classes with Adrien again… my life is ruined.”

Nino chuckles, “I was just talking to Adrien, why don’t I add him to the call, and he can straighten all of us out.  He’s got mad math skills.”

Marinette squeaks, “Adrien?  My room isn’t ready.”  Marinette starts cleaning everything in view of her camera.

Alya smirks, “Chill girl, it’s just a math review.  It’s not like he’ll have a good view of the rest of the room anyway.”

Adrien appears on the screen, and chuckles upon seeing Marinette franticly moving around her room, “Hey guys!”

“A-Adrien!”  Marinette rushes back to her seat, sits down a little too quickly, and the chair ends up spinning in a circle.  She stops the chairs spinning once she’s facing the monitor again, and smiles.

Adrien smiles back and Marinette, “So, why’d you call?”

“Well dude, we’re trying to figure out what the answer to question number 4 of our math homework is.”

“Let me check.”  Adrien starts searching through his bag and pulls out his homework.  “The answer is 2 and -2.”

Alya and Marinette groan and spoke at the same time, “How are there two answers?  Hey!”

Nino hangs his head down, “I didn’t get either of those answers.”

Adrien chuckles again, “That was kind of the point of today’s lesson.  How about we just go over the problem from the start.”  Adrien proceeds to go over the problem, consistently checking to make sure everyone understands.

“I wish Adrien was our teacher.”

Adrien smiles, “Thanks Marinette!”

Marinette squeaks, “Did I say that?”

“It certainly didn’t sound like Nino.  Why don’t we go over the next question?”

“S-sure!”

After going over a few more questions, Marinette’s phone pings, signaling a message.  “Ew!”  Marinette throws her phone across the room.

Alya scolds, “Marinette, you’ve got to treat your phone better!  It’s a girl’s best friend.”

Marinette whines, “But it was from Chloe!”

“What did she say?”

“I didn’t read it.”

“Well, hold it up to screen and I’ll read it for you.”

Marinette gets her phone, which luckily landed on the chaise, and holds up the message to the computer’s camera.  Her three friends start laughing.  “What?”

After a little bit, Alya answers in between her lingering laughs, “You have… Her contact… as… Queen Beetch.”

Adrien snorts, “Mari, I didn’t know you liked puns.”  Frowning, he added, “I guess she does deserve that pun though.  I’m sorry she doesn’t treat you right.”

“It’s not your fault.  Even though it’s a bit mean towards Chloe, you seemed to really enjoy it…” Marinette smirks, “do you happen to have a… soft _spot_ for superhero puns?” 

Adrien laughs, “You really are a baker’s daughter… you’re on such a _roll._ ”

Marinette groans and rolls her eyes, “I regret everything, this isn’t punny anymore.”

“Now that your two are done,” Alya smirks, “can I read that message?”

“Oh, yeah.”  Marinette holds up the phone again.

“Ok, she says, ‘I realize that I was being a Royal Beetch,’”

Marinette rolls her eyes, “She didn’t say that.”

“Close enough, I’m using my artistic license. So, to continue, ‘I’m a Royal Beetch, and I will try to do better in the future.  Now please’ oh, she said please… ‘Now please inform Adriekins that I apologized.’  Wow, so sincere.”

Marinette smiles, “Thanks Adrien for, um, sort of getting her to apologize, in her own way.”

“No problem.  Actually, all I did was tell her to that she should be careful to not push you too far, and then I showed her the video I recorded of your fight with Kagami.”

Marinette squeaks, for like the 10th time today, “You recorded it?”

Alya shows her puppy eyes, “Aaadriiien, can you pleeeese show us that vid-e-o?”

“Sure, I’ve already watched it like six times.”

Marinette’s eyes widen, “Six?”

Adrien sends the video to all of them, and they watch on their own computers, starting at the same time. 

Once the video was over, Nino spoke up, “Dudette, that was really cool.”

Alya starts cackling, “Marinette, that was so hilarious.  That’s the first time I saw Kagami show any emotions.”

Adrien chuckles, “Marinette never ceases to amaze me.”

Marinette squeaks again, then blushes and smiles, “Th-Thanks”


	10. The First Batch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> \- The heroes face off against Apathy  
> \- The group reviews some math homework
> 
> Now:  
> \- The first batch of the Chinese Zodiac heroes are introduced, and training begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler Alert: This chapter references several of the new heroes that have been recently introduced in season 3. I've actually rewritten sections of this chapter several times, as the heroes were introduced, and I had planned to have different characters using the weapons than the show used. I think I can mostly guess what the show is planning for which person gets which miraculous, and I'm going to try to stay close to that, but I have special plans for certain characters, so the miraculous they get will diverge a bit.

**Wednesday midmorning (5 Days after Heroes Day)**

Ladybug walks around the corner, and sees Chat about to enter the warehouse with a transformed Kagami.  Kagami’s outfit is mostly covered in red scales, with a black dragon tail outlined in gold swirling around her body.  Off the top of her head protrudes four red, black, and gold horns, and finally she has a sword sheathed to her back.

Chat smiles as he notices Ladybug, “Purrfect timing as usual my lady.”  Chat performs his bow.  “So, who’s your new friend?”  Chat glares behind Ladybug to see the holder of the Snake Miraculous, in all of his black and teal glory.  ‘ _With all of those abs on his outfit, he must be compensating for something._ ’

“Let’s save the introductions for the whole team.”

The four of them enter the warehouse, to find that most of it is just one large, mostly empty room.  There are a few pieces of abandoned equipment, presumably to manage loading and unloading whatever.  The other three regulars are off to the side of the room talking to each other.

Queen Bee steps forward upon seeing Ladybug, Chat Noir, and the two newbies.  “Before we begin, I need to tell you that the city doesn’t actually own this building yet.  The company that owned this property went out of business a while ago and no one else wanted it, so it’s currently owned by a bank.  Daddi- ahem, the Mayor is negotiating with the bank to buy this warehouse and the one next door for ‘police training’.  If we cause too much noise and the bank finds out we want it for hero training, they’ll try to rip us off.  Also, we should be careful of any damage until we own it.”

Ladybug smiles, “Thanks for the update Bee.”

“Oh, and I brought snacks from the hotel, they’re in that room over there.”  Queen Bee points to what looks like a small office.  After a moment, she adds, “Just remember that the sushi’s mine.”

“Thanks for handling the food for today.”  Ladybug claps her hands together, “Ok, time for introductions.”

The heroes introduce themselves one by one in order, and give brief explanations of their powers and their weapons.

After Carapace is done, he signals to Kagami that it’s her turn.  “Well, I’m a dragon.  My weapon, is uh,” Kagami reaches behind her and unsheathes her sword, “a bokken, which is a Japanese wooden training sword.  My special power is to transform into one of the three elements of a storm; wind, water, or lightning.  Wind Dragon!”  Kagami dissolves into a cloud that starts swirling around the room, while the other heroes cover their eyes.  The wind dies down as Kagami reforms a bit away from the rest of the group.  Her miraculous beeps.  “How much time do I have left?”

Chat speaks up, “Four minutes left.  You have five minutes once you use your powers, and it beeps every minute.  So, what’s your name?”

“Hm, I’m a dragon, and I’m red, so how about ‘Dragoon Rouge’?”

Rena steps up and wags her finger, “Nuh uh, Rouge is part of my name.”

Carapace adds in, “Besides, Red Dragon is the name of a serial killer in a movie and book series.  You probably want something a little friendlier.”

Kagami opens up the phone in her weapon, and starts typing into it.  “Wyrm, gross.  Wyvern, no.  Draco, that sounds better for a guy.  Naga? nah.  Hey Chat Noir…”  Kagami walks over to Chat Noir and whispers into his ear.

Chat Noir nods, “That’s purrfectly fine.  The miraculous has magic to prevent our identities from being revealed too easily.  Though, if you transform in front of them, they’ll probably feel like an idiot for not putting it together earlier.”

Kagami smirks, “Very well, my name is Ryuko.”

Carapace smiles, “Cool, it’s like Ryu from that old arcade game.  I dig it dudette.”

The dragon miraculous beeps again.  “I’ve never been to an arcade, so I don’t get the reference, but Ryu is a Japanese Dragon.”

Chat speaks up, “Why don’t you grab a snack for Longg, detransform, and come back here for the last introduction.”

Ryuko jumps over the group, performs several twirls in the air, and as she lands, she jumps again into the other room.  After a minute she returns to the group.  “Ok, now what?”

The teal snake hero speaks, “It soundsss like it’s time for my introductssion.  My Kwami is Sass the sssnake.”

Queen Bee groans, “Do you have to talk like that?  You’ll take forever!”

“Oh, does a certain busy bee need to be somewhere?”

“As a matter of fact, I do have plans later.  So, it’d be appreciated if you kept the hissing to a minimum.”

“Fine.  As I was saying, this lyre is my weapon, and I don’t know how to use it yet, but I guess that’s what this training is for.  As for my special power…” the snake hero flips open something on his bangle, “… it’s called Second Chance.”  He pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil and write something and then folds it.  “When I active my power, anything that happens within the next couple of minutes can be retried.  Ok, someone say a number.”

Chat smirks, “I’m game, hooooow about… 3.1415926 and something.”

Ladybug rolls her eyes, “Kitty, did someone skip breakfast?”

“No, but superheroics always makes me a bit peckish.  Bugaboo, I always knew you are purrfect and incredibly smart, but I didn’t know you’re a fan of math.”

Ladybug rolls her eyes, “Hardly, it’s just my father’s favorite number.”

The snake hero hands the folded paper to Chat Noir.  Written on it, was the symbol for Pi.  “Woah, I didn’t even notice you use your power do anything.  Think of the pawsibilities, all of the best junk food you could eat without gaining weight or feeling sick.”

“You must really be hungry Kitty.  Back on track, what’s your superhero name?”

“Ah, for my name, I’m thinking Viperion Rouge.”

Rena clenches her fist and growls, “You’re teal and black; there’s not a spec of red on you.”

Snake boy holds up his hands in defense, and chuckles, “Ok, fine, you can call me Viperion.”  Viperion’s bangle beeps.

Ladybug claps her hands together, “So, the way I see this working is that before lunch, we’ll help Ryuko and Viperion to familiarize themselves with their powers, and then we’ll switch to some general sparing, and then maybe Chat and I will play the villains and you’ll need to catch us or something.  After lunch, two more recruits will join us, and we’ll do the same with them.  I’m hoping that this weekend we’ll have four more recruits here, and then final four sometime next week, though, that might be a little ambitious, as not everyone has been decided upon and vetted.  Any questions before we go over your roles during training?”

Everyone shakes their heads, “Ok, so there’s a reason why Ryuko and Viperion are the first of the new recruits to join the team.  Ryuko is an experienced fighter, so she’ll lead combat training sessions with Chat. As Chat’s priority is still helping me with the akumas, Ryuko will probably lead combat training more often than not.  As for Viperion, well, I’ve heard that you’re pretty good at reading people.  We’re going to be adding a lot of people to our group pretty fast, we don’t know how everyone will mesh with each other, so your primary job while training is to intervene when things look like they’re getting out of hand.  I think you’ll also be pretty good at helping members resolve conflicts, but with your powers, it’ll give you a second chance to resolve any issues.  Queen Bee, you’ll have the similar job.  If a fight does break out, you’ll be able at least paralyze one of them.  Obviously, anyone of us can step in if there’s a problem, but your two powers are the best for preventing and stopping issues.  Rena, since your illusions disappear when touched, you can make illusions of civilians that need to be protected.  Maybe once we get the warehouse next door set up, we can also use your illusions as part of the obstacle course, and for the different scenarios I come up with.  As for Carapace, you’ll be undergoing special training by yourself, which should start in the next few days.  Ryuko, Viperion, I know it sounds like we’re dumping a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, on your first day no less, which I guess we are, but I don’t think you should feel overwhelmed.  We all have our own lives, but we’ll also take turns sharing the burden of the training.  Queen Bee is also working on getting outside police help for training other skills.  I’m not sure what our options are yet, but that should help spread the work out a bit.  Ok, so any questions before we start training?”

 

* * *

 

 

The training started with the team hold a contest to test their abilities… their speed, strength, jumping distance, hearing, ect.  For the first time, they were actually able to figure out how different each Maraculous was.  Everyone won at least one of the contests between, them, well almost everyone.  It was looking like Carapace was going to win the weightlifting competition, but then Viperion stepped up and took the prize.  Not that there was anything wrong with Carapace, he had pretty consistent and good results in most contests, but they decided not to have one on who could take the biggest beating.  Ladybug had brought a new notebook, and they tracked everyone’s results in it.  Ladybug and Chat Noir seemed to overall be the best, and their abilities tended be well balanced and higher than the rest of the team’s. It also seemed that Ryuko and Viperion were the least balanced in the group, so the team was expecting similar results with the rest of the Zodiacs.

Next, they moved onto combat training for a while.  They took turns pairing up and trying to fight either Ladybug or Chat Noir.  It was instantly clear to everyone that Ryuko was indeed a skilled fighter, and was better than everyone else with the exceptions of Ladybug and Chat Noir.  Even after battling countless Akumas, Ladybug struggled against Ryuko until her weakness was discovered, and then Ladybug exploited that weakness as much as possible.  It wasn’t that the other heroes were terrible, but Ryuko had never faced an opponent with the help of a partner before, which allowed Ladybug to dodge and deflect in such a way that caused the partners to hit each other, or otherwise ruin the other’s plan.  The Bee Miraculous was the only other one that was truly meant for a strong fighter, and with Chloe’s dancing experience, she made a pretty tough opponent, and when she was teamed up with Ryuko, they ended up being the worst team.  It didn’t take long for Ryuko and Queen Bee to ignore Chat Noir, and attack each other instead.  Their fight finally stopped when Queen Bee called out venom and she lunged at Ryuko, only for Ladybug’s yo-yo to shoot out and knock the stinger into Queen Bee herself.  The joy on Ryuko’s face was quickly whipped off when she found the yo-yo wrapped around her, and then she was suddenly hanging upside down from the beams up by the ceiling.

  

* * *

 

 

After the final match for the morning, everyone headed over to the buffet that Queen Bee had set up for them.

Chat plopped his arm on Ladybug’s shoulder, “Hey Bugaboo, so, Rena and Carapace know each other’s identities, right?”

“Yeaahh?  Why?”

“Weeell, would you agree that they were also the best team we went up against?”

Ladybug sighed, “Yes Kitty, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for us to reveal our identities.”

“Hm, maybe their teamwork has nothing to do with the fact that they know each other’s identities, but the fact that they’re dating.”

Ladybug groaned, “Chat, do we really have to go over this again?”

Chat’s face turned into a pout, “No, we don’t.”  Chat looks over at Rena rubbing her head, “So, I also noticed that you were a bit rough on Rena today, you even managed to bop her in the head when she wasn’t in the fight.”

“She knows what she did.”

“Which was?”

“Being reckless and slow to dodge.”

Chat was about to question further when Carapace passed by to pick some more food.  “The duddette means that since Rena has received her Miraculous full time, there have been two akumas, and each of them got to Rena.  The mugger akuma took her Miraculous and the rest of our stuff, and that screaming dudette akuma from last night had mind controlled Rena as well.  She would have transformed if I hadn’t grabbed the Fox miraculous and ran away.”

“She needs to learn to have better reflexes in her civilian life.”

“Yeah, Rena and I talked about that, and we’re thinking of practicing parkour together.  We’re also discussing how to be close enough to the fight to know when we’re needed, but still be able to keep a safe distance.”

“Thanks Carapace, that makes me feel better about the situation.”

Chat opens up his baton and checks the time.  “Shoot, I need to be home to have lunch so no one gets suspicious.”  Chat quickly grabs a couple half sandwhiches.  “LB, I’ll be back after lunch with another hero.”  Chat runs out the door and disappears.

Queen Bee watches in disgust as Chat Noir leaves, “Ug, that cat is such a pig, taking my food and then running off to have lunch.”

Ladybug sighs, “Queen Bee, you shouldn’t shame people from eating food, and if you haven’t noticed, he’s a bit too thin, so he should be encouraged to eat more.”  Ladybug’s looks at Queen Bee, and her eye’s narrow, “And that reminds me… I heard that yesterday you were being less than heroic towards one of your classmates.”

Queen Bee’s shoulder’s slump and she averts her eyes, “I was a bad mood, and I needed to lash out at someone.”

“A true hero is a hero both inside and outside of the mask.”

“I know.”

“Did you apologize?”

“S-s… ug, sorry ! there!”

“Not to me, to her!”

“Yes, of course I did!”

“Was it a real apology?”

Queen Bee mumbled, “Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.”

‘ _With that phrase, everyone would probably know who she is without having to reveal herself on camera._ ’  “What was that?”

“No, I didn’t give a real apology, but I will when I see her tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

 

After lunch, Ladybug slipped out of the warehouse, and a few minutes later she hopped back in with a new bunny hero.

The heroes talked for a couple minutes until the return of Chat which announced by a very disgruntle exhale from Queen Bee.  “What!  Are!  Those!”  The group looks to where Queen Bee is pointing at, which is a Rooster themed hero.  He’s a bit taller than Chat, with much broader shoulders and bigger muscles.  Some Chinese features show through his face and eyes.

The rooster smirks and starts flexing, “Oh Queenie, are you checking out my rock hard abs?”

Queen Bee is practically buzzing in annoyance, “Those!  Are!  Not!  Abs!  People only have a six pack.  Why do you have a… what is that, and eighteen pack?”

Continuing to flex in different poses, “What can I say?  I’m a real an animal.”  The rooster winked at Queen Bee, “Queenie, its ok if you want to check me out, but I should warn you that I have a girlfriend.”

“Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.”

Ladybug pulls Chat aside, “Is he the best you could fine?  He seems really obnoxious and arrogant.”

Chat smirks, “What can I say, I don’t know anyone that’s cockier than him, so he’s a perfect fit.”

It’s Ladybug’s turn to exhale in annoyance, “Did you choose him based on a pun?”

Chat holds his hands up in defense, “Relax, I thought he’d be a good hero, and I chose him to be the rooster because he has more energy than anyone I know.”

Ladybug glares at Chat for a moment before exhaling, “Fine, you’re my partner, and I trust your judgement, just don’t make me regret it.”

Chat rolls his eyes, “Yeah, I can feel the trust just radiating out of you.”

Ladybug looks into his eyes, searching to read his emotions.  “I’m sorry Kitty, I didn’t think it’d be so…” Ladybug’s hand flounders in the air, “It just really bothers me that I don’t know his identity.”

“I know that feeling.  Secret identities are really overrated.”

“Kitty…” Ladybug exhales and then turns to the rest of the heroes “Ok everyone, let’s gather up.  Ok, we’ll do a brief round of introductions again, and then we’ll return to training.

The heroes go around and introduce themselves again, and then it’s finally the Rooster boy’s turn.  He smiles, “My name is Cock-a-doo…”

Ladybug interrupts, crossing her arms in a X, “No, we are kid friendly superheroes.”

“Fine… how about Cluck Norris.”

Chat starts cackling at the pun.

“Maybe not borrow from someone currently alive?”

“Ok, Gongji, it’s Chinese Chinese for rooster.”

Ladybug narrows her eyes and opens up her yo-yo.  After typing a bit, she sighs, “I don’t see anything wrong with that name.  Approved.”

Gongji pulls out a bow from his back, “This is my weapon, and I have infinite arrows, though I’ve never used a bow before.  And my special power is ‘Rising Sun’!”  A yellow light glows from Gongji, and everyone feels invigorated.  “It’s like an energy drink, but it can also wake people up.”

Rena’s fox ears twitch in excitement.  “Soo cool!  When Hawkmoth makes a sleep akuma, you’ll totally take him down.”

“Ok, my turn.”  All eyes move to the bunny hero whose holding out an umbrella, “So this umbrella is my weapon, which is kinda cool, I guess.”  She opens and closes the umbrella, and examines it from various angles.  “My power is pretty rad, it lets me time travel, but I still don’t know all of the rules on how to not ruin the timeline, so I’m not going to use it yet.”

Carapace nods in agreement, “That’s very wise, you don’t want to go back in time and have your ancestor fall in love with you instead of your other ancestor.  Can you do the thing where you time travel to the same time over and over again, to make a billion copies and take down the big bad by yourself?”

“Uh…”

Ladybug shakes her head no, “She’ll end up splitting her strength and magic with every copy that’s in the same time, meaning she’ll be a bunch of weaklings.  Too many and she won’t be able to time travel.  The same is true for any of us, if we go back in time to when there’s another active user of our miraculous.  Other types of magic might be fine with time duplicates, but not us.”

Gongji shakes his head sadly, “That’s a bummer, but don’t worry little bunny, I’ve got enough muscle to take on all of the villains.”  He ends with flexing his muscles again.

“Yeah, whatever.  As for my name…” she taps her chin, “I’m thinking Bunny Rouge.”

Rena growls and Viperion starts laughing at her reacting.  Viperion stops laughing as the flute is thrown and hits him squarely in the forehead.  “Ow!”

“Venom!”  Queen Bee stings Rena.

Ladybug shouts out, “Bee!”

“What?  She was out of control, and you said my job was to control.”

Ladybug facepalms, “We’re going to need a lot of work.”

"Well, if we're done with that, then my name will be... Bunnyx!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the show, we only see Luka teasing Marinette, and that's obviously because he likes her, but Viperion's teasing of Rena isn't meant to be flirting. He can tell she's a hot head, and he's just being mischievous. His teasing should be considered similar to a practical joke between friends more than anything else, something that Luka wouldn't normally do (Sass might be having an effect on him).


End file.
